coal seam gas

SYDNEY (Dow Jones)-- Beach Petroleum Ltd. (BPT.AU) said Friday that it has received expressions of interest from various parties in its coal seam gas assets.

The oil and gas producer's chief executive, Reg Nelson, also said the value of Beach's coal seam gas or CSG assets aren't reflected in the company's share price.

Australian CSG reserves are attracting huge interest from multinational energy companies keen to develop liquified natural gas from CSG and export it to Asia.

In the most recent of these deals, ConocoPhillips agreed to pay up to US$8 billion for a half share in Origin Energy Ltd.'s (ORG.AU) CSG assets. The high value of the deal scuttled a hostile A$13.83 billion takeover bid for Origin by BG Group PLC (BG.LN).

CSG is not core to Beach's business, but Nelson said its reserves are still "extensive" and "significant".

"We've had expressions of interest from various parties but we're yet to see anything on the table," Nelson told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview.

"There's keen interest in any company holding significant CSG in Queensland and not surprisingly we've had various parties contact us," he said. "Whether we would make a deal or not is subject to what offer we might get."

Beach holds all of its CSG assets through a joint venture with Arrow Energy Ltd. (AOE.AU)

Arrow operates the permits and has a 60% stake, while Beach holds the remaining 40%.

Arrow said Friday that it had finalized a deal with Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB.LN), to which it is selling 30% of its local assets that include its joint venture permits with Beach, for up to A$761 million.

Nelson said Beach has net interests in proven and probably or 2P CSG reserves of 443 petajoules and proven, probable and possible or 3P reserves of 890PJ.