Bhp Sells Timor Sea Interests

The Age

Friday June 12, 1998

BHP Petroleum has sold its interests in the Jabiru/Challis/Skua oil licences in the Timor Sea to Canada's Gulf Canada Resources.

A price was not disclosed but has been estimated at $30 million, based on remaining oil reserves of five million barrels and the inclusion of the Jabiru and Challis floating production storage and offloading vessels (FPSO).

The Jabiru field recently returned to production after being shut in April for repairs to a leak in the riser piping on the FPSO.

The deal is in line with BHP's new zeal in stripping down to a core asset base and offers early development promise for the Tenacious oil field discovered last July.

Tenacious is 13 kilometres from the Jabiru and is 25 per cent owned by Gulf.

"The sale is part of consolidating BHP's businesses around its best-performing assets and is a continuation of a comprehensive program to upgrade the quality of BHP Petroleum's portfolio," BHP said.

It said the decision to sell was part of a petroleum review to "examine means to maximise value to shareholders from its Australian-operated assets".

The sale of the Jabiru and Challis oilfields was based "on the low production contribution of these assets within the wider Petroleum portfolio", BHP said.

© 1998 The Age

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