Santos Unveils More Asset Sales

Even though Santos is facing a $13.5-billion offer from Harbour Energy, that hasn’t stopped its campaign of selling unwanted assets.

The company revealed yesterday that it had raised $US221 million from selling Asian assets.

Santos said included in the sale were assets in Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh.

The assets produced 1.4 million barrels of oil equivalent in the first quarter of 2018, while the company’s total production was 13.8 million barrels of oil equivalent.

The money will be used to pay down debt ($US2.5 billion at the end of March)and the sale will allow the company to focus more on its (mostly LNG) gas operations in Australia and Papua New Guinea.

The sale was made to London-listed Ophir Energy.

Ophir shareholders will be asked to approve the sale in June.

Santos shares rose 0.3% to $6.22, still well below the $6.50 offer price from Harbour Energy.

About Glenn Dyer

Glenn Dyer has been a finance journalist and TV producer for more than 40 years. He has worked at Maxwell Newton Publications, Queensland Newspapers, AAP, The Australian Financial Review, The Nine Network and Crikey.

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