Mitsubishi Corp, Japan’s biggest trading company, and Mitsui & Co have agreed to buy a 14.7 percent stake in Woodside's Browse LNG project for the amount of $2 Billion.
The Mitsui and Mitsubishi venture, Japan Australia LNG Pty, also agreed to take delivery of 1.5 million metric tons of LNG annually from Browse, they said today in a statement. Its shares rose to the highest in almost seven months in Sydney trading.
Chief Executive Officer Peter Coleman said in August that Woodside may sell stakes in the Browse and Pluto LNG ventures to help fund more than $70 billion of planned projects to meet Asian demand. The company could get $1.6 billion selling 16 percent of Browse, Citigroup Inc. estimated in January.
“$2 billion for the stake is a very good value” for Woodside, Philipp Kin, an energy analyst at the Royal Bank of Scotland Plc, said by phone today. “My question would be what is the price for the LNG contract, what are the potential trade- offs, if any.”
