Nexus told the market on Friday afternoon it had received the payment from Osaka Gas for the stake, in a deal agreed on at the beginning of August.

As a result, Nexus said the partners would start joint studies to identify and secure exploration opportunities to locate “significant potential gas resources.”

Now that the front-end engineering studies are complete, Nexus said it was aggressively pursuing the project’s development and the drilling of the Crux-2 and sidetrack appraisal wells.

The two companies have committed to a work program designed to progress Crux towards a final investment decision in the second quarter of 2008.

Looking ahead, Nexus expects to receive results from an independent resources estimate for the Crux project by next month.

Drilling of the two development wells, as well as an exploration well in the adjacent AC-P41 permit, is expected to start in January.

In addition, Nexus said it was reviewing an option with its 15% shareholder Viking Shipping regarding the lease of a floating production and offtake vessel for the project.

Nexus said Crux was on-track for first start-up in the first half of 2010.