Saudi Aramco made a major push towards entering the global LNG market in the second half of 2023 when it agreed to acquire a “strategic minority stake” in MidOcean Energy for $500mn (MEES, 29 September 2023). MidOcean was formed and is managed by US investment firm EIG, and in October 2022 agreed to pay $2.15bn for the interests of Tokyo Gas in four Australian integrated LNG projects – Gorgon LNG, Ichthys LNG, Pluto LNG and Queensland Curtis LNG – which are to serve as its foundation assets (MEES, 20 October 2023).
The Tokyo Gas asset purchase has taken longer than expected, and the reason why became clear this week. On 11 January, Japan’s Inpex announced that it has reached an agreement with Tokyo Gas to buy the latter’s 1.575% stake in the Ichthys LNG Project. Inpex already holds 66.245% interest in Ichthys, and says that once Tokyo Gas agreed to sell up to MidOcean, it exercised its preemptive rights to acquire the stake. (CONTINUED - 263 WORDS)
