Mitsubishi Corp. is about to acquire the shale and pipeline assets of Aethon Energy Management and is ready to pay up to $8 billion for them, Reuters has reported, citing unnamed sources.
The deal would give Mitsubishi a solid presence in shale gas, the publication said, adding the assets were conveniently located close to the Gulf Coast and all the LNG plants already operating and getting built there.
The negotiations on the deal are still ongoing and the acquisition may yet fall through, the Reuters sources said.
Aethon Energy Management has been exploring options for its natural gas assets since last year. At the time, the assets were valued at some $10 billion. Originally, the company considered either a sale or an initial public offering for the assets, which include over 1,400 miles of pipelines.
Mitsubishi Corp., a major player on the global LNG market, recently indicated it might become an investor in the Alaska LNG project—a priority energy project for the Trump administration. Mitsubishi is already one of the five joint venture partners in the LNG Canada project on the country’s West Coast, which is nearing completion and set to ship out its first LNG export cargoes by the middle of this year.
The Alaska LNG project would also be close to Japan and other Asian markets, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and state officials said as they toured north Asia earlier this year in a bid to attract Asian investors in the project.
The Japanese conglomerate, meanwhile, hold stakes in LNG projects around the world, including Russia, Malaysia, Oman, Australia, and the United States. It annual LNG production from all these assets averages 13 million tons, per Reuters. The company recently boosted its stake in Malaysian Petronas’s LNG complex—one of the world’s largest single LNG production facilities.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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