ENI may sell its Australian assets, according to sources speaking with the Australian Financial Review, with possible buyers including Beach Energy.

Beach does not have any Darwin or offshore Northern Territory assets, or a position in an LNG export facility but does have experience in offshore gas and domestic gas plants and already partners with Santos, which has a large share of Darwin LNG, which the Italian company has a minority stake in.  

Eni also has the undeveloped Evans Shoal field, which it took operatorship of in late 2017. 

Beach's last large purchase was Origin Energy's upstream vehicle Lattice Energy in 2017, and it has spent the past two years pursuing largely organic growth options. 

It farmed out a large stake of its offshore Otway position in Victoria in 2019 to OG Energy. 

APA Group is apparently another targeted buyer, though nothing was mentioned during the pipeliner's online investor briefing day last week. 

"Sources said Eni... and its bankers at Citi had pitched the portfolio as defensive in nature and said they were sheltered from global oil prices, which analysts expect to be low for months or years to come," the Fin said. 

All the Italian company's Australian assets are gas, including the Blacktip gas field which goes to Darwin's Yelcher gas plant and its 11% stake in DLNG and the declining Bayu Undan field which feeds it. 

Source: Energy News Bulletin

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