Australian coalseam gas company Dart Energy has completed its A$145 million ($147 million) acquisition of another local explorer, Apollo Gas, the company said Tuesday.
"We are pleased to have now fully completed the Apollo takeover, and are already well advanced in terms of initiating work on the Apollo assets, and fully integrating Apollo into the broader Dart business and team," Dart CEO and Managing Director Simon Potter said in a statement. "Our 2011 drilling campaign in Australia will see work across the Apollo portfolio, and the first well has already been spudded on PEL 459."
Dart, which launched the friendly all-scrip takeover offer for Apollo last September, was spun off in mid-2010 from Australian coalseam gas producer producer Arrow Energy after it was acquired for A$3.4 billion by Shell and PetroChina. The two global giants wanted Arrow's gas resources in the northeastern state of Queensland to underpin their planned 8 million mt/year LNG project on Curtis Island in Gladstone.
Dart was formed to hold Arrow's 90% stake in its coalseam gas assets in China, India, Vietnam and Indonesia, along with several Australian growth prospects, including a 21.04% stake in Apollo and farm-in rights to Apollo's exploration license PEL 458.
Apollo owns seven exploration permits in the eastern Australian state of New South Wales spanning 24,000 sq km of the Sydney-Gunnedah Basin near existing and planned gas transmission pipelines and gas-fired power stations. The basin's PEL 458 was estimated last year to hold a potentially commercial contingent coalseam gas resource of 1.34 Bcf.
"The acquisition of Apollo is a logical move for Dart and is consistent with our Australian strategy laid out at the time of the demerger of Dart from Arrow Energy -- to grow big, grow fast," Potter said last year.
In two other deals announced in September 2010, Dart signed a gas sales agreement for pilot production at its Liulin field in China, taking it a step closer to delivering one of China's first commercial coalseam gas projects, and it acquired a 10% stake in European coalseam gas player Composite Energy for $7 million.
