Central Petroleum Buys 50% of Mereenie Oil, Gas Field from Santos

Central Petroleum has agreed to acquire to acquire a 50 percent interest in the Mereenie oil & gas field from Santos and assume operatorship of the field in the Northern Territory’s Amadeus basin.

The move will significantly increase Central’s operations and enable Central and Santos to maximise the amount of gas available for the proposed Northern Territory-East Coast (NEGI) gas pipeline.

By taking on operatorship of Mereenie, Central will become the common operator across all three conventional gas fields producing in the Amadeus Basin. This acquisition will increase Central’s oil production to over 500 bopd and contracted gas sales to over 4 PJ/p.a.

Under the agreement Central will pay A$45 million in cash to Santos, structured as A$35 million on financial closure of the deal and the balance of A$10 million to be paid in June 2016.