Origin made the bid to acquire all the ordinary shares in OCA that it does not already own with a cash offer of $4.25 per share. Origin currently holds 85.23% of the 117 million OCA shares on issue.

Under a pre-bid agreement with Santos Ltd, Santos has agreed to accept the offer in respect of 2.9 million shares, but is considering a independent experts report before making a decision on its remaining 11.8 million shares in the company.

The buy-out overshadowed a successful quarter for OCA which included the beginning of a $10 million Phase 1 development program for the Mungi coalbed methane gas field in Queensland, located near the industrial market of Gladstone.

Twelve coal bed methane gas (CBM) wells (including two coreholes) were also drilled during the period with production testing continuing on the Durham and Mungi fields and at the Timmy exploration wells in ATP 602P.

The Front End Engineering Design phase and environmental studies continued for the Durham CBM project while the pipeline licence, PPL 90, was also granted for the construction of the Durham to Wallumbilla gas pipeline.