PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The Papua New Guinea (PNG) National Court has approved the merger between ASX-listed Santos and fellow listed Oil Search.
Oil Search on Thursday told shareholders that the company would lodge a certified copy of the orders with the PNG Registrar of Companies on December 10, at which time the scheme of arrangement would become effective.
Oil Search shareholders earlier this week backed the merger with Santos, under which shareholders would receive 0.6275 new Santos shares for each Oil Search share held via a scheme of arrangement.
Oil Search shareholders will own approximately 38.5% of the merged group and Santos shareholders will own approximately 61.5%.
The merged entity will have a diversified portfolio of high quality, long-life, low-cost assets across Australia, Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea (PNG) and North America with significant growth optionality, and will have a pro-forma market capitalisation of A$21-billion, which will position the merged entity in the top-20 ASX-listed companies and the 20 largest global oil and gas companies, with a combined 2021 production of approximately 116-million barrels of oil equivalent.
The enlarged company will have a combined 2P+2C resource base of 4.9-billion barrels of oil equivalent, investment grade balance sheet with more than $5.5-billion of liquidity to self-fund development projects, whilst maintaining further optionality and flexibility to optimise the portfolio, a target gearing of less than 30%, and strong environmental and social governance credentials including maintaining Oil Search’s social and community investment in PNG and North America, including the Oil Search Foundation.