Mysterious Buyer Of Shares In Little-known Oil Company

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31093, 23 June 1966, Page 11

Mysterious Buyer Of Shares In Little-known Oil Company

(Special Crspdt. N.Z.P.A.) SYDNEY, June 21. Australian businessmen, accustomed in recent years to the type of sensation which switches commercial news to the front pages, are currently puzzled by the mysterious purchase of about one million shares in a littleknown oil company. Tn quiet deals over the last few weeks an unknown buyer has captured a large slice of the issued capital of the Woodside (Lakes Entrance) OU Company, and his identity has remained the best-kept business secret of the year. All inquiries into “Mr X” have run into a dead end, as he has bought through a Sydney broking firm, which is sticking to its business ethics and refusing to identify its client. What is puzzling most people in the financial world is that not only do they not know who the buyer is, but they do not know why he is after such a big say in Woodside’s future. Woodside directors say they “haven’t a clue” who the mystery buyer is, and the business world’s most popular tips, Esso Exploration Australia Incorporated, and have both denied they are responsible. Woodside has been hunting oil without success in Australia for many years. Most of its efforts have gone into

trying to find the source of oil seepages around Lakes Entrance on the Victorian coast, but this is now believed to have come from an offshore reservoir.

But the company is a joint holder of the largest single off-shore oil lease in Australia, and has undertaken substantial survey work in offshore areas. It holds the leases inshore of the big commercial gasfield discovered off the Gippsland coast by B.H.P. and Jersey Standard (Esso), and plans to sink its first off-shore well in the area later this year.

Woodside also has a massive lease area off the northwest coast of Australia, abutting the Barrow Island area, and this could well have spurred the mystery buyer into action. West Australian Petroleum Proprietary, Ltd., (Wapet) last month declared its Barrow Island field commercial, with an expected production of 85 million barrels of oil worth about £(N.Z.) 110 million. Barrow Island will be Australia's third commercial oil field, and will be twice as productive as the field at Moonie, in Queensland, where oil was struck in Australia for the first time in 1953. The Wapet find was hailed as a major step in Australia’s quest for oil self-sufficiency, and the Prime Minister, Mr Holt, said: “I hope it will serve as an encouragement to search elsewhere for an indigenous oil supply.” Some hopeful observers have commented that if the rate of recent discoveries con-

tinues Australia could be selfsufficient in oil and gas in 10 years, but at the moment known reserves will meet only 10 per cent of current demand.

One aspect of the Woodside mystery that has worried some people is that the buyer may represent overseas interests. Already less than 20 per cent of Australia’s oil leases is Australian-owned, and it has been pointed out that much of the advantage of being self-sufficient in oil would be lost if ownership were not Australian.

Woodside’s partners in the giant north-western Australia coastal lease are 8.0. C. of Australia, Ltd., the Burmah Company, Shell Development (Australia) Ltd., and MidEastern OiL Woodside formed Mid-

Eastern in 1962 to take over part of its interests, and to help provide extra finance for exploration. Woodside has a 20 per cent holding in MidEastern and the companies have common directors and management. Woodside also has an 80 per cent owned subsidiary in Victorian Oil. and both Woodside and Mid-Eastern hold 200,000 shares- in Alliance Petroleum, which has interests in leases in all mainland States and the Northern Territory. Shares in all oil exploration companies are currently having their best rise since Moonie was declared commercial to set off the boom of the early 19605. The Woodside affair has added a touch of mystery to the continuing search for oil.