* Sona Petroleum buys Stag field for $50 mln
* Santos says mature field no longer a core asset
(Adds Sona's plan, Quadrant statement)
By Sonali Paul
MELBOURNE, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Santos Ltd STO.AX , which
rejected a $5 billion takeover offer last month in the hopes of
getting better value from selling assets, made its first sale on
Monday with a small deal to exit the Stag oil field off
northwestern Australia.
Malaysian company Sona Petroleum Bhd said it had
agreed to buy the ageing oil field from Santos and private firm
Quadrant Energy for $50 million, in a statement.
Santos, scrambling to pay down A$8.8 billion ($6.3 billion)
in net debt, had been looking to sell its two-thirds stake in
Stag before it effectively put all its assets up for sale in
August.
"Stag had delivered a strong production performance over the
life of the field but it was now mature and no longer core to
the company's strategy," Joe Ariyaratnman, Santos' general
manager for Western Australia and Northern Territory said in an
emailed comment.
Wood Mackenzie valued Santos' stake in the field, which as
of June was producing 4,600 barrels a day, at $13 million.
Santos shares rose 2.6 percent on Monday, defying weakness
in other energy company shares.
The company has declined to comment on reports it is in
talks to sell down part of its coveted 13.5 percent stake in the
Papua New Guinea liquefied natural gas (PNG LNG) project to
Japan's Marubeni Corp 8002.T .
That stake alone could be worth A$6.5 billion ($4.6 billion)
based on the value implied in a recent bid by Woodside Petroleum
WPL.AX for Oil Search Ltd OSH.AX , a bigger stakeholder in
PNG LNG.
Sona plans to pay for the acquisition from cash it raised in
its initial public offering two years ago.
It expects to extend the life of the Stag field, producing
since 1998, by adding new wells to boost oil recovery and has
agreed to take over environmental liabilities which kick in at
the end of the field's life.
Sona in January scrapped plans to buy a stake in two oil and
gas blocks in the Gulf of Thailand from Salamander Energy for
$280 million after London-listed Ophir Energy (L:OPHR) Plc proposed a
takeover of Salamander. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL3N0UT2KN
Quadrant Energy is owned by Brookfield Asset Management and
Macquarie Capital which acquired oil and gas assets, including a
one-third stake in the Stag field, from Apache (N:APA) Petroleum APA.N
earlier this year.
"Today's announcement represents a notable step in Quadrant
Energy's strategic portfolio repositioning as we seek to
capitalise on new growth opportunities," Quadrant said.
($1 = 1.4000 Australian dollars)