Herbert Smith Freehills has advised Woodside Petroleum Ltd on the exit by Shell Energy Holdings Australia Limited, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell plc, comprising:

• a selective buy-back of 78.3 million Woodside shares owned by Shell for total consideration of A$2.9 billion. The consideration is based on a price per share of A$36.49, representing a 14% discount to the volume weighted average price of Woodside shares over the five trading days before the announcement of the transaction, and

Linklaters has advised Globeleq, the leading independent power generation company in sub-Saharan Africa, on a $70-million three year term loan facility from Standard Bank. The debt finance will be used to grow its African power asset base and position the group as a leading private power company on the continent.
 

White & Case LLP has advised Nostrum Oil & Gas plc on its successful admission to the premium listing segment of the Official List and to trading on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange.

Clifford Chance has advised Royal Dutch Shell plc (Shell) on its sale of 156.5 million shares in Woodside Petroleum Limited, representing a total estimated value to Shell of around US$5 billion (A$5.3 billion) on an after-tax basis.

The sale, which represents 19.0% of Woodside's issued share capital, is through an underwritten sell-down to equity market investors and a selective share buy-back by Woodside.

Hogan Lovells has advised MOL Group on its participation in a joint venture to develop the North Sea Catcher oil field, field development approval for which was announced on 12 June 2014.

The US$2.25bn Catcher project, operated by Premier Oil, will consist of 14 oil-producing subsea wells and eight further water-injecting wells designed to boost oil production to a peak of 50,000 barrels of oil a day when it starts in 2017; and is expected to boost UK oil output by up to six per cent.

Norton Rose Fulbright’s Sydney office is acting for Magnum Hunter Resources Corporation (Magnum Hunter) on its hostile competitive off-market takeover offer, via a wholly-owned subsidiary, for all of the ordinary shares in Ambassador Oil and Gas Limited (Ambassador). The consideration under the offer is Magnum Hunter stock.

Ashurst has provided legal advice to Singapore's Pavilion Gas Pte Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pavilion Energy, in relation to its 10-year 0.7 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) liquefied natural gas (LNG) purchase agreement with Total Gas & Power Asia starting from 2018.

The LNG sale and purchase agreement was signed on 31 May 2014 and is the first publicly announced long-term LNG sale and purchase agreement for the Pavilion group.

Herbert Smith Freehills has recently advised Etablissements Maurel & Prom, a French oil company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration and production, on the issue of net share settled bonds convertible into new shares and/or exchangeable for existing shares (ORNANE) for a nominal amount of approximately €220 million, raised to approximately €253 million after exercise in full of the over-allotment option.

Ashurst has advised Drillsearch Energy Limited (Drillsearch) in its A$41.6 million takeover bid for Ambassador Oil and Gas Limited (Ambassador), announced on 28 May 2014.

The first certificate in Poland to confirm the fulfillment of the criteria of independence provided for in Art. 9d Sec. 1a of the Energy Law was issued to PSE on June 4, 2014 by the President of the Energy Regulatory Office. This was the culmination of several months of work in which PSE was supported by Dentons lawyers: Arkadiusz Krasnodebski, Wojciech Boguslawski, Michal Motylewski and Zbigniew Stasiak.