SANTOS MOVES INTO TOP 20
SANTOS starts its new life on Monday as a $22bn “regional champion” in the energy sector, counted among the top 20 companies on the nation’s stock exchange and employing about 4000 people.
The Adelaide-based oil and gas company, which is rapidly branching out into sectors such as carbon capture and storage and also has hydrogen ambitions, concluded its merger with Papua New Guinea-focused Oil Search late last week.
The company will trade on the ASX for the first time on Monday as a $22bn entity, putting it solidly into the top 20 by value in Australia.
The company will now combine Santos’s substantial assets across Australia, including the Moomba oil and gas fields and the associated gas plant, the Gladstone and Darwin liquefied natural gas plants, major gas operations in Western Australia and the multibillion-dollar Narrabri gas project in NSW, with Oil Search’s PNG gas assets and a major oil project in the US state of Alaska.
Santos managing director Kevin Gallagher said the companies were “stronger together” and would have “unrivalled growth opportunities over the next decade’’.
“The merger creates a company with strong and diversified cash flows, providing a platform to deliver shareholder returns and successfully navigate the transition to a lower carbon future,’’ he said.
“Additionally, the merger builds on our industryleading approach to ESG (environment, social and corporate governance) through the combination of Santos’s leading carbon capture and storage capabilities with Oil Search’s social programs in PNG and North America.’’
When Mr Gallagher started at the company in 2016 it was heavily indebted, with shares trading at about $3.30, almost $10 lower than they had been just three years previously.
Mr Gallagher has been credited with turning the company around since then, by maintaining production despite cutting large numbers of staff, and managing to pay down the debt well ahead of the initial forecast.