Total of France responded to a competing offer made by the U.S.-based energy giant ExxonMobil to acquire InterOil Corporation.
Total said on Wednesday it was analysing the competing offer “in line with its demonstrated policy for capital discipline on acquisitions and investments and taking into account the most recent 2C resource certification of Elk Antelope of under 6.5 tcf completed in July 2016.”
ExxonMobil earlier this week made a $2.2 billion offer , challenging an earlier bid from Oil Search, which was backed by the French energy giant. Oil Search has until Thursday to meet or beat ExxonMobil’s bid.
Total is the operator of the Elk and Antelope fields and Total is already and will remain the largest shareholder in PRL15 with a 31.1% interest, alongside partners Oil Search (17.7%) and InterOil (28.3%), post the government back-in right of 22.5%.
Total considers that the initial offer by Oil Search for InterOil represented a “fair value” for the Interoil’s assets and Total was “keen to increase its share in the project for such a value”.
“It was also clear to Total that a portion of the acquired interests would have to be offered to certain LNG buyers and also to PNG LNG participants in order to develop synergies between the Papua LNG project and the PNG LNG project,” Total added.