Woodside advises that it has entered into binding Sale and Purchase Agreements to acquire half of BHP Billiton’s Scarborough area assets in the Carnarvon Basin, located offshore Western Australia.

The acquisition includes a 25% interest in WA-1-R and a 50% interest in WA-62-R, which together contain the Scarborough gas field. Woodside will also acquire a 50% interest in WA-61-R and WA-63-R which contain the Jupiter and Thebe gas fields.

Woodside will operate WA-61-R, WA-62-R and WA-63-R. ExxonMobil is the operator of WA-1-R.

Woodside will pay BHP Billiton US$250 million on completion of the transaction and a contingent payment of US$150 million upon a positive final investment decision to develop the Scarborough field. The effective date of the transaction is 1 July 2016.

The Scarborough area assets include the Scarborough, Thebe and Jupiter fields, which are estimated to contain gross 8.7 trillion cubic feet of gas resources at the 2C confidence level. Woodside’s net share of the resources is estimated to be 2.6 trillion cubic feet of gas.

Woodside CEO Peter Coleman said that adding Carnarvon Basin volumes to the Australian portfolio would complement Woodside’s growth strategy and leverage the company’s deep water and LNG capabilities.

“We look forward to working with ExxonMobil and BHP Billiton following completion of the transaction to progress commercialisation of these world-class resources,” he said.

Completion is subject to pre-emption rights and customary regulatory approvals and is targeted by yearend 2016.

Transaction details and notes
An investor pack containing notes on petroleum resource estimates forms part of this announcement.

About Woodside

Woodside is Australia’s largest independent oil and gas company, with a proud history of safe and reliable operations spanning decades.
As the largest operator of oil and gas in Australia, Woodside produces around 900,000 barrels of oil equivalent each day from a portfolio of facilities which we operate on behalf of some of the world’s major oil and gas companies.

About BHP Billiton

BHP Billiton Petroleum has exploration, development, production and marketing activities in more than a dozen countries around the globe, with a significant position in the deep water Gulf of Mexico, Onshore US and Australia. Petroleum also operates assets in the United States, Australia, United Kingdom, Trinidad and Tobago and Pakistan.

Our oil and gas strategy is to focus on material opportunities, at high working interest with a bias for operatorship. We also hold interests in exploration blocks where we explore for significant upstream opportunities in proven basins and promising prospects around the world using the latest seismic and geophysical technology to locate new resources.