The offmarket bid was made by CERCG this morning, days after it rescinded an earlier 71cps offer this week.

 

It has upped its offer to 73cps, saying if offers "compelling value and certainty for AWE shareholders". 

 

The increased offer is not because AWE rejected the previous one, but that it "reflects further analysis by CERCG which indicates AWE should be able to update its attributable Waitsia 2P reserves estimate to at least 500 petajoules". 

 

A condition of the offer is that there is a floor on any further gas sales agreements of $5.50 per gigajoule.

 

CERCG said it has been in discussions with the company for two months on a "friendly and collaborative basis" but after "unproductive" engagement with the board was making the offer direct to shareholders.

 

CERCG is urging shareholders to accept, pointing out that AWE has often fallen short of delivering shareholder returns. 

 

The company still wants to complete due diligence, however, something AWE had previously not agreed to.

 

It is true that the company's share price has fluctuated and did not rise to meet the first CERCG bid, which is unusual but the company's share price has seen improvement this year and RBC Capital Markets rates it at Outperform. 

 

AWE has not yet responded but is steaming ahead with Waitsia, announcing today that it was evaluating three engineering procurement and construction tenders and two build-own-operate tenders. 

 

The company said the technology packages were being evaluated to optimise production and operational costs with the overall submissions also being reviewed for capital cost certainty and an efficient and cost-effective construction delivery method. 

 

Managing director David Biggs said that it was an excellent result and called all five "quality submissions from local and international companies". 

He expected the evaluation process to run through the month. 

 

"The process will also provide the joint venture with capital cost certainly, which is a critical step towards establishing funding requirements and making a final investment decision," he said. 

 

Last month RISC upgraded its reserves estimate by 78% and with one of the highest gas flows ever recorded from the Waitsia-4 well of 90 million cubic feet per day of gas, RBC Capital Markets have also suggested the Waitsia project could be scaled up from a 100 terrajoule per day case to 150TJpd.

 

RBC has also maintained that the final investment decision timing still rests on finalising further gas sales agreements.

 

The Western Australian market has more than enough gas, but may start run low after 2022. 

 

FID will also be contingent upon the completion of JV partner Lattice Energy's sale to Beach Energy. 

 

After the last takeover bid and the resulting flurry of questions many analysts wondered what the subsidiary of Chinese energy giant CNPC, which owns Woodside Petroleum's Browse partner PetroChina, had planned for Waitsia given strong Chinese gas demand. 

 

Despite that, and possible concerns from the Foreign Investment Review Board, it is understood that CERGC had plans to ship the gas via its own technology to Australian mine sites. 

 

Though it had previously said it would find another gas field for its plans it is obviously now determined to have Waitsia and pretence of friendly dealings is starting to fray. 

 

AWE was slightly down this morning trading at 65.5c.