artemis...the hunt is on, page-9

TP

IMO, the bids should b confidential unless either party puts down their arms & hussle MEO jointly. I dont know how the big 2 nxt doors will go about this, as either party is competitive, but we've seen what happens when the competitive instinct kicks in (read the bit on Shell below).

I dont think MEO are that naive, as they are developing their own methanol hub at Tassie Shoals which has a 'Project' status approval to it, so they know how to leverage Artemis farm-out to their max advantage.

We know that, Chevy propose to build their own plant at Onslow, while Woodie are 72% ahead in this race at Pluto & seem 2b going bonkers for more reserves.

Its fairly elementary that if they have a plant with huge capacity of LNG trains, they'd want to sell the product to the competitve mkt but would ensure that they have enough raw-gas reserves to process. Thats how the deal-making guru's think.

However back to the joint bids, one needs to also look at other operators who are doing well as a team.

Offshore WA, we have a JV between Conoco/Santos/ENI at Bayu/Undan, recent deal between Santos-GAZ France in the Bonaparte, Inpex/Total at Ichthys, Conoco-KAR in the Browse. The only exception is Shell at Prelude, who r being prudent & going Dutch, in a booming acreage. In 2005, they outbid other parties by a long shot, to pick up WA-371, just b'coz its nxt doors to the monster Ichthys field (13 Tcf) & Shell will operate their own floating LNG. So that's my take on other current JV-Operators in the Browse & Bonaparte Basins.

BUT, wait it gets better. Did anybody notice SingPet (i.e. Petrochina) sneak onto CUE's reisgter in late July. I know I did !! They are the second largest holder in CUE's acreage & no please, the Chinese aren't interested in CUE's assets in NZ or Indonesia, I dont believe that gospel. Its about Artemis's location near Wheatstone & Pluto. For now CUE are joint at the hip with MEO, who have an acreage nxt doors to Chev-WPL, period.

I'd expect MEO to update the mkt, when a decision is made. They can then thrash out the nitty-gritty bits on free-carried, drill/test cost-sharing etc by late Sept. IMO, thats the way to go.

The clock is ticking, only 16hrs to go for the "IB' deadline.

PS: Ignore the typos, I dont have a Ms. Moneypenny to proof-read my posts :)