MOSCOW (MRC) -- Shares in Woodside Petroleum fell after an unsourced media report said Australia's top independent gas producer was in talks to buy some or all of BHP Group's oil and gas assets, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.
Woodside shares ended down 2 cents in a broader market that rose 0.8% and while BHP rose 1.3%. The report in The Australian's Data Room column followed a Bloomberg report which said that mining group BHP was considering selling its oil and gas business, which includes assets off Australia and Trinidad and Tobago and in the Gulf of Mexico.
BHP and Woodside declined to comment on what both companies called "market speculation". "We remain focused on the continued safe execution of our Sangomar project in Senegal and achieving our targeted final investment decision on the Scarborough and Pluto Train 2 developments in Western Australia," a Woodside spokesperson said in an emailed comment.
Credit Suisse analyst Saul Kavonic said there would only be a limited pool of buyers for BHP's Australian assets, partly because they include ageing assets which face hefty decommissioning costs within the next 10 years. He also said Woodside would be a "lead candidate" to buy BHP's Australian petroleum assets as Woodside already has stakes in two of them - the North West Shelf LNG project and the Scarborough gas field.
BHP Chief Executive Mike Henry said as recently as March that BHP sees "attractive value and returns to be generated for shareholders for the next decade" from oil and gas, but would sell off more mature assets.
As per MRC, BP acquired US shale assets from BHP Billiton for USD10.5 billion in the largest deal since the 1999 acquisition of Atlantic Richfield oil company. British oil and gas company BP bought US shale assets owned by mining company BHP Billiton.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 953,400 tonnes in the first five months of 2021, which virtually corresponded to the same figure a year earlier. High denisty polyethylene (HDPE) shipments decreased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 607,8900 tonnes in January-May 2021, up by 33% year on year. Shipments of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased, whereas deliveries of PP random copolymers decreased.
MRC