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Monday, 08 September, 2008, 17:50 GMT | more prices >>

AED spins off stake to Sinopec



By Upstream staff 

Australian producer AED Oil said it will sell a 60% interest in its wholly owned fields off north-west Australia to China's Sinopec in a deal valuing the assets at A$1 billion (US$933).

The deal, that includes AED's Puffin and Talbot fields, is expected to be sealed within the next two weeks, the company said in a statement.

AED said the agreement with Sinopec's international exploration arm would allow it to clear debt and pay creditors, as well as continue its development of the fields.

The parties plan to work together in a wider sphere to seek other project opportunities in the region, AED said in a statement.

The deal is subject to regulatory approval by Beijing and Australia's Northern Territory government.

AED shares were hit last month after it emerged that it was unable to pay Norwegian contractor AGR for work by a subsidiary on the Puffin operation.

The company saw its shares rise sharply in the middle of last year when it boosted its estimate of recoverable oil at the two fields to 100 million barrels from 40 million barrels originally.

However, its stock price fell sharply in October when it was forced to cut output from the Puffin North-West field to between 6000 and 10,000 barrels per day from earlier forecasts of 30,000 bpd.

The company operates the Front Puffin floating, production storage and offloading vessel on the Puffin field. It bought the Talbot field from Apache in August last year for A$2 million.


Friday, 07 March, 2008, 07:20 GMT  | last updated: Friday, 07 March, 2008, 08:30 GMT

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