Woodside says it could be in BHP sights

Woodside Petroleum Ltd on Tuesday said it could be in the sights of mining giant BHP
Billiton Ltd following Royal Dutch Shell's sale of a $US3.3 billion ($A3.27 billion)
stake that sent its shares diving.
Shell said the 78.34 million shares, one-third of its holding in Woodside, was sold
to equity investors as part of a wider bid to raise capital.
The announcement, made in London late Monday, sent Woodside's shares tumbling 6.26
per cent to $A42.99 on the Australian Securities Exchange.
Woodside chairman Michael Chaney said "it is possible" BHP Billiton would now be
interested in entering the fray, especially given it had "run the ruler" over
Woodside in the past.
"It is natural that they'd be doing so again," Mr Chaney told a business lunch in
Perth.
BHP, which has earlier this month had its $US38.6 billion ($A38.19 billion) bid for
Canada's Potash Corp of Saskatchewan Inc rejected by regulators, declined to comment
on the Woodside speculation, Dow Jones Newswires reported.
But Mr Chaney played down the prospect of Woodside being taken over in the near term.
"We don't see this as a destabilising situation at all in the sense of making a
takeover more likely," he told reporters.
Mr Chaney said he'd been informed of the sale "just before the market closed" on
Monday and he understood Shell had "huge financial commitments" it needed to meet by
selling off indirect investments.
Woodside is Australia's second-biggest oil and gas company and has announced an
ambitious push into the lucrative LNG sector.
Its Pluto LNG project, off Australia's northwest coast, is estimated to hold 4.1
trillion cubic feet of dry gas, with another major project slated at the Browse gas
field, further north.
Analysts say Woodside is likely to attract interest from state-owned enterprises in
countries such as China as well as large energy companies.
"I suspect there will be interest at least to look at it, and see what actions
progress from there," said Deutsche Bank oil and gas analyst John Hirjee.
LNG is produced by cooling natural gas into liquid form so that it can be stored and
transported easily. It is popular partly because it is more clean-burning than other
fossil resources.