Executive Summary
Long Santos.
There is no green energy transition. Hydrocarbons are under-rated, under appreciated and the critical lynchpin of the Australian Economy. Gas will always be needed.
Santos is a reasonably priced basket of good assets, with significant importance to the country, with 5 Catalysts towards price appreciation.
I don’t believe the XRG/ADNOC takeover occurs due to FIRB. There is a pathway where PNGLNG is divested to XRG/ADNOC, leaving a very interesting stub.
The management is so burned through government processes that the company has simply pivoted hard towards maximising shareholder returns and investing more selectively.
2026 FCF looks excellent and significantly above prior years. Due to Pikka & Barossa coming online and lower CAPEX commitments.
Attractive development opportunities via Narrabri (key for Domestic Gas) and Pikka Stage 2.
Santos was always going to be my second write up following $KAR. In the context of the recent XRG takeover offer I have accelerated the write up and reduced the depth I would like to have provided. Thank you for the feedback on $KAR.
(Note I consult full time in engineering and have 2 young kids. I also have a data startup I’m trying to get off the ground; time is short 🙂 ).
PS: I am hoping to pivot my employment from engineering into an investment analyst role in Aus. I have built some fairly unique Australian real estate datasets and a bunch of interesting Japanese and European equities beyond energy. Happy for anyone on the institutional side to reach out.
PPS: Energy and Policy/Politics are deeply entwined. My research and understanding drives my politics, not the other way around. Politics makes my brain hurt, I avoid it wherever necessary.
Company Summary
Santos Limited (ASX: STO) is a major Australian oil and gas exploration and production company, with significant operations across Australia, Papua New Guinea and North America. The company is a key supplier of natural gas to the Australian domestic market and a major liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter to Asia. As of June 2025, Santos Limited has a market capitalization of approximately A$25.2 billion.
Energy Background
Energy is needed to sustain life. The developed world is built on the back of cheap energy, delivering the standard of living we are used to.
There are 5 key pillars of modern energy systems in our society: Affordability, Reliability, Scalability, Energy Density, and Environmental Friendliness. (Vacliv Smil). Woodside popularised “Energy Security” as another element post the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Harnessing energy is a trade off. There is no single right solution, every generation form has positives and negatives. People are generally complacent over where energy comes from and generally concern themselves with more useful and important endeavours.
Hydrocarbons (Gas/Oil/Coal) are all very cheap and efficient forms of energy, related to their energy density, ability to store/transport and their development costs. More notably our industrial base is designed for hydrocarbons.
Modern Politics being heavily focused on climate has driven left leaning populations and their leaders wildy against hydrocarbons, demonising them due to their byproducts of combustion, whilst being utterly reliant on them and not recognising their importance. Most climate “solutions” are deeply hypocritical.
Australian Policy Backdrop & Renewables
Santos and Woodside are the two Aussie majors that receive most of the backlash, a big part of this is because they are public with a lot of information available about them and have large marketing wings to compete for capital. The products sell themselves, the marketing is purely for brand and reputation reasons1.
Governments, representing these populations, are deep in creating policies attempting to reduce hydrocarbon reliance and use.
Most of the discussion & hype around reducing hydrocarbon’s use is around only Transportation and Electricity generation.
There are 4 key pillars of civilisation each built with hydrocarbons: Ammonia/Fertilisers for food; Plastics, Steel and Cement.
Good luck running something as heavy as a plane with enough Ammonia or Batteries to cover the energy requirements. The physics simply doesn’t work2.
The hypocrisy (or cognitive dissonance) of the Australian Government is world class in that:
Hydrocarbons are the #2 export of the country, mostly into Asia.
The government has committed to significant emissions reduction targets. Discouraging their use. Whilst backing mostly Solar and Wind; two technologies we do not produce indigenously, mostly from Asia.
These renewables have added significant cost and complexity into the country’s electricity grid, whilst not replacing any previous component of the grid3.
Recognises emissions from Australia should be reduced, whereas does not comment on overseas markets emitting over 50x the CO₂ emissions into the same atmosphere and growing. “We need to do our bit for the climate despite others’ actions…”
Recognises importing CO₂ from overseas and sequestering locally in Australia is eligible for tax incentives4, whereas exporting coal overseas receives no penalty.
The main punching bag for climate targets is the electricity grid, fueled by coal power plants and gas plants. There is minimal discussion among fertilisers, steel and air transport as there is no simple product to sell.
Parliament, Government bodies (AER, AEMC, CER, ARENA) and Quasi government bodies (such as AEMO, Transgrid and State Energy Companies) have been completely corrupted by the idea of renewables being able to widely replace Hydrocarbons in our Electrical Energy system. (Namely Coal/Gas).
Each body, no matter its makeup, is generally captured by the targets in key AEMO documents (ISP/Gencost), and the idea of “Net Zero”.
These targets are junk and have been completely discredited by a small, intelligent community of energy commentators, namely Aiden Morrison and Ben Beattie.
There is a large amount of public support for these policies (however unrealistic), so I am not merely blaming Canberra.
To make things worse, the Australian Government and ALP has also demonised Nuclear Power. This is largely unique among centre-left governments, of which global peers are typically pro Nuclear.
Renewables5 are overrated, and should only make up a small part of our Energy Systems. They are a distraction.
The power density is simply too small, the source too unreliable and quite simply cost in-efficient.
There is a place in the mix, a small place. They need so much backing up, such that it's much more effective to simply run the backup facility at high utilisations.
There is no country that has a high mix of solar and wind and cheap power.
There are huge diminishing returns where renewables can reliably offset baseload electricity generation. I theorise only around 5-10% of a grid can only be renewables.
All of the above has affected the Australian grid management and policy:
No new Coal plant has been built since 2007.
There's a general view that gas is mostly used for Electricity Generation. The use of gas as an irreplaceable chemical feedstock is overlooked (collateral damage). More importantly, the feedstock is the most efficient way to heat a blast furnace; a plant that can not survive without a constant flow of gas.
Oil/Gas/Mining projects experience significant delays, taking 5+ years to get all required approvals. (WHC Narrabri Stage III, WDS North West Shelf Extension, STO Narrabri)
Electricity prices are comparatively high, in a country blessed in resources typically used in power generation (uranium, gas, coal).
Consumer Gas prices on the eastern seaboard are undeniably high.
Electricity and gas pricing mechanisms in Australia are so broken the market based pricing system is not longer a real market.
The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) frequently intervenes to ensure system security, often issuing directions to generators to switch on or off, irrespective of price signals. In 2022 AEMO issued more than 6,000 directions6.
The suspension of the entire NEM in June 2022, when market pricing failed to keep supply and demand aligned7.
The Federal Government imposed a temporary $12/GJ cap on domestic gas prices in December 2022 under the Gas Market Emergency Price Order, following prices spiking to over $30/GJ8.
AEMO Reports constantly (prematurely) warn around upcoming gas shortages.
Australia has large LNG exports (including Santos at GLNG), exporting the product in long term contracts that are often more economically attractive to the contract party than local consumers. This has further fueled voter’s opinions against the large gas producers/exporters.
The electricity generation types in the country are politicised. MP’s constantly refer to certain energy mixes at certain times to meet their agenda9.
There is a general hesitancy for governments/regulators to approve new gas projects/pipelines as there’s a perception where gas can just be taken away from the LNG exporters (constitutional issues), or redirected from WA down to Victoria (magically, where no pipeline even exists).
Victoria is the ‘leader’ in this area whereby their main supply source being the Gippsland basin has been declining for decades and is now near end of life; yet no new supply is being brought on. Many successive governments have fell into the same Green trap, and it's gotten so bad that:
Victoria is planning to build LNG import terminals to import LNG10.
Recent reports of Victoria using 13% of their yearly gas allocation within 3 cold days in winter. This just smells of misallocation of resources11.
My somewhat informed view is that Australia (Eastern) is too complacent over the energy reliability situation; government leaders are more driven through political promises than any sense of reality (whilst of course having fantastic advisors screaming at them to build more gas). We have become a fairly energy illiterate nation, whilst having some of the most globally significant resources still in the ground.
Australia is the Eskimo that buys Ice.
I do not believe that Australia is able to easily course correct and are more likely to respond to an acute crisis, than pragmatically respond in advance to reduce the problem. This is partially due to policy and the people running the country; but also the fact that energy projects take a long time to build.
I think that Australia is completely unable to meet the 2030 82% Renewable target and the 2050 Net Zero target. These targets are more akin to economic repression than helping the climate12. Having a lack of Nuclear generation is a big factor in my thinking, reality is another factor. If Australia (or NGO’s) truly cared about having a low carbon grid, they would not oppose Nuclear.
The Solution is Gas
What does a capitalist do in this situation? Own the solution13.
The current Labor majority Australian Government has the pleasure of being the recipient of their own current energy policies and targets. Their 2025 federal election win was so large and decisive, they are speculated to be in government for multiple future terms.
Meaning they will likely be in charge from 2022 through 2031; a timeline that includes their own 2030 renewable targets, which they will miss by a huge margin14. This I attribute to their anti-nuclear stance, the only real pathway to meet their 82% renewable goal.
Current policy is unlikely to change direction, yet we are faced with an energy problem where four of the five available energy system types aren’t appropriate:
Solar: Doesn’t work at scale; low density; batteries too expensive to compete.
Wind: Too irregular and low density.
Nuclear: Politically untenable.
Coal: Politically untenable.
Gas: The only remaining option.
I theorise the Australian business & political elite are running the figures behind the scenes and struggling to come up with anything else. Yet I also see a lot of political posturing unable to clearly define whether to Ban, Tax or Expropriate gas.
To be clear, gas is a much cleaner burning fuel than coal. It has similar energy density and costs, Australia has thousands of gas industry professionals who have created some of the best gas handling & compression facilities in the world. The country should be working overtime to switch as much of the existing coal (and renewable) generation over to high utilisation gas plants.
Finally, post the 2025 election we seen a grab bag of events, all tip-toeing back into hydrocarbon reality:
AustralianSuper are back as a significant holder of Whitehaven Coal equity; after a very loud exit campaign in 2022, they are now a 7.3%+ shareholder.
Macquarie opening up to Coal investing.
Westpac opening back up to Gas Lending.
Federal Government shuffling Environment Ministers.
Federal Government approved extension for Woodside’s North West Shelf to continue to produce gas to 2070.
The Victorian Government approved the concept for an LNG import terminal.
Looking to Markets now, what Australian Gas Assets are listed for private ownership:
Power Generation & Retailers: Origin, AGL.
Oil/Gas Producers: Woodside, Santos.
Smaller caps: Beach, Amplitude (formerly Cooper), Tamboran. Strike.
Australian refiners: Viva and Ampol; I can not take seriously vs global peers and are glorified Kwik-E-Marts.
Pipeline Infrastructure: APA.
These sectors are fairly unpopular, industrial, under-owned, low multiple, high capex, high emissions, poor brand marketers and protest targets. What could be more ironic to own?
Let's get back to Santos…
Santos’ Assets
I see Santos as a bit of a hodge podge of assets from opportunistic acquisitions all over Aus with PNG and Alaska in the mix. Their assets are globally significant, just geographically and operationally disparate.
The core of Santos was historically the Moomba/QLD onshore assets; whereas now LNG takes centre stage.
PNGLNG is the crowning asset, and was from an opportune purchase of Oil Search (ASX:OSH) in the depths of Covid with Oil Search suffering extreme share price declines related to large debt obligations with impaired short term cash flow15. PNGLNG is non operated, partnered with ExxonMobil, world class operators of large scale assets.
The Head Office is still in Adelaide, largely administrative and midstream/downstream focused Moomba support. Most of the upstream engineering is done out of the Brisbane Office.
LNG Assets
PNG LNG (Papua New Guinea)
Operated by ExxonMobil; Santos holds ~42.5% via Oil Search merger
Producing: ~8.5 Mtpa
Fields: Hides, Angore, Juha, Kutubu (upstream)
Infrastructure: Hides Gas Conditioning Plant, LNG plant near Port Moresby
GLNG (Queensland)
Operated by Santos (~30% stake); partners include Petronas, Total, KOGAS
Producing: ~6–7 Mtpa
Based on CSG (coal seam gas) fields around Roma, Fairview, Arcadia
LNG Plant: Curtis Island, Gladstone
Barossa to Darwin LNG (Northern Territory)
Barossa gas field (offshore NT) to backfill Darwin LNG.
Santos is operator and ~62.5% owner.
Construction of FPSO complete (and on location), 5 wells drilled and ready to go; subsea infrastructure hookup ongoing.
Darwin LNG plant originally supplied by Bayu-Undan (now depleted).
Oil Assets
Dorado (WA offshore)
Large undeveloped oil field in the Bedout Basin.
Discovered in 2018 via Quadrant Energy.
Santos: Operator, ~80% stake.
In FEED; oil-focused Phase 1, gas optional.
Cooper Basin (SA/QLD)
Historically oil-rich (Jackson, Tirrawarra fields).
Still produces light crude oil; declining volumes.
Pikka (Alaska)
Onshore oil project on North Slope, Alaska
Acquired via Oil Search merger
Santos holds ~51%; operator
Target: ~80,000 bbl/d at full production (Stage 1 under development)
WA Assets (Gas-focused)
Offshore Gas Fields (Carnavon Basin) (Ex-Quadrant Energy assets)
Reindeer field – feeds Devil Creek
John Brookes / Spar / Harriet – feed Varanus Island
Varanus Island Hub – gas processing and export
Devil Creek Gas Plant – onshore gas processing near Karratha
Santos markets domestic gas into the WA gas grid
Midstream & Infrastructure
Moomba (SA)
Central hub for Cooper Basin
Moomba Gas Plant: major compression, processing, liquids separation
Moomba CCS Project
Darwin LNG / Bayu-Undan
LNG plant in Darwin (1-train, ~3.7 Mtpa)
Previously fed by Bayu-Undan (Timor Sea, now depleted)
Barossa field now under development to supply it.
The Santos Investment Case
My case for Santos is simple; a good set of assets at a good price, exposed to highly valuable commodities. Oil, LNG and Aussie domestic gas. PNGLNG the standout which will last for 30+ years, with the asset hidden away from most of the world, whilst ExxonMobil run the show behind large walls like a micronation; and Santos busy adding new PNG wells for their feedstock. Pikka and Barossa are both near complete and about to turn around and provide significant cash flow. FCF has been marginal the past few years due to heavy investment, it is due to inflect to ~US$1.1B in CY2026 and stay around that level for the near future. The portfolio is largely low decline LNG assets.
Santos even has a legitimate carbon sequestration project in Moomba, sequestering appprox 10% of South Australia’s emissions into a single well. The system is already fully built and operating away. This half the company should receive the latest round of tax credits too. Santos is uniquely set up to store CO₂ inside old depleted reservoirs; having proved the concept, creating the tax break and marketing potential to actually meet the ‘net’ part of net zero; a concept most seem to miss.
I am highly skeptical of any company (especially energy companies) talking about reducing emissions and carbon footprint, yet even I can acknowledge this strategy has legs.The CO₂ stream is directly from the Moomba plant, with the appropriate expertise already in house to not only dry and compress the CO₂ but to also understand the regional geology where to store the CO₂ and to also develop the injection well is, unfortunately legitimate carbon sequestration. Santos can use this to offset a lot of their carbon liability. Onshore injection wells close to existing plant/well infrastructure would be very cost effective.
Probably won’t see this mentioned in the next Extinction Rebellion protest.
The company’s management has pivoted the last couple years inline with US producers; who have now truly focused on shareholder returns being more important than growing the company. Good oil company management suites are responding by reducing CAPEX, increasing buybacks and prioritising return of FCF/Net Income. This is evident across the majors, the mid tier, and specifically Santos in AU16.
The CEO Kevin Gallager is obviously fairly sick and tired of Australian bureaucrats and lengthy approval processes and has pivoted towards prioritising shareholder returns. He has been verbally hostile towards Victoria; literally comparing their energy regulator to North Korea17.
At the Investor Day in late 2024, Santos upped their shareholder returns criteria from “>40% of FCF” to at least 60%. Santos management has absolutely got the message around prioritising shareholder returns. This looks excellent.
Equity and Valuation
The market priced $STO equity as low as ~$5.21 on April 7th 2025 during the US Tariff shock. This seemed very low given the historical levels18 of the Share price and the value of PNGLNG alone. The equity is currently around $7.70 (with a 2025 high of $7.83).
A deterministic valuation on any Oil/Gas company will yield predictable results of low EV/EBITDA’s etc, but the story with Santos is the 2026 FCF.
With 2026 Production expected up closer to 120kbd (vs the current 99kbd), at stable unit costs we have an EBITDA setup up from the previous US$3.5B level to ~US$4.5B (A$7B), or a Net Income that is moving from US$1.0B to US$1.7B.
FCF goes from ~US$200m in 2024 & ~US$0M in 2025 to US$1.1B+ in 2026 onwards.
Thats A$1.7B/year on a Market Cap of $20-$25B for a ~10% FCF yield whilst still investing into other assets with Narrabri up the sleeve. Adding to the free cashflow seems very reasonable in a world hungry for more LNG.
Outlook
Santos has a happy coincidence/plan in 2026 whereby their development assets pipeline reduces and their cash flowing portfolio increases; FCF turning on a dime thanks to Barossa and Pikka.
The Development Portfolio has two standouts, one is Pikka Stage II, the other is Narrabri.
Narrabri is an onshore gas field in NSW, approximately located just outside of the Australian east coast population centres of Sydney/Melbourne and of appropriate size to contribute in size to that market. Having this field sitting waiting on regulator approvals, whilst gas prices rise as Australia; whilst having no obvious value of this field in the current share price is just beautiful. FID for the field is expected late 2025; it will be a no brainer.
Pikka Stage II is pre-FID, but a wider development of the existing Pikka Stage I development. Potential to take an 80kbd field up closer to 150kbd. Just more cost efficient barrels in a good jurisdiction.
The other elephant in the room is the XRG (ADNOC) Offer. We have $8.89/sh currently offered for all of the Santos Equity (~AU$29B for the equity, with ~$6B debt)19.
The stated strategy of XRG/ADNOC is to have 20-25 Mtpa of LNG production. They have the deep pockets to take over Santos and the basic trust for the commodities that built the UAE.
The share price trades at $7.70 whilst I write this. The market doubts the ability for this takeover to happen, centered around FIRB review.
This is a major conundrum for the current centre-left Australian Government. A government that has been openly hostile to gas and Santos, is now tasked in defending Santos against the Emirates. The typical regard for jobs and maintaining the HQ is expected and cliche. The regard for the equity is more of an unknown. The key consideration is the ownership of east coast gas reserves. Assets worth only a few billion, critical to a $1.7T GDP economy.
Santos is sitting with 5 catalysts:
Whole company takeover offer at $8.89+ by XRG/ADNOC. Whilst I assume this will be blocked by FIRB, Santos will be higher on the radar inside the Federal Gov, the media and Institutional investors.
Narrabri FID and all approvals completed, leading to a new key source of gas for the domestic market; more FCF. Selling gas into $10+/GJ with onshore development costs has no outcome but being wildly profitable. The eskimos are running short of ice.
PNGLNG alone being taken over by XRG and the Australian assets + Pikka remain as “Santos”. The leftover “Santos StubCo” becomes mostly Australian Gas; will continue to power Australia and will continue to be the target of protests and the butt-end of government policy. The StubCo assets would all be in the early or mid life, with significant lives left, could then immediately develop Narrabri assuming some good will from the Government that has presumably just blocked their takeover. Management continue their shareholder returns.
Optionality around selling Pikka to an American producer.
2026 FCF improvements following Barossa and Pikka coming online.
Typical oil price Geopolitical price movements. I commonly tune this out as the upsides in pricing (Middle East) typically are mirrored in equivalent downside risks (US/China Tariff War), which seem to end up averaging each other out.
My take
The ASX doesn’t deserve Santos. The Emirates are solving a problem that Australia has no interest in fixing.
I think FIRB block the take-over on “National Interest” grounds and the premium vs undisturbed mostly remains embedded in the Santos share price20. However the discussions are fruitful in that the Australian Government recognises the importance of Santos providing onshore gas to the Eastern Seaboard. The discussions help accelerate Narrabri behind the scenes.
There is a massive irony here as the media speculates on this takeover; what I read is that regulators are worried about Emirati influence on the Australian domestic gas supply; whilst it is literally the Australian government holding back and slow-balling project & environment approvals (and legal challenges) against new projects21. The XRG offer somewhat forces the hand of reality.I think XRG/ADNOC take PNGLNG off Santos’s hands, at a solid premium. I am guessing ~AU$4.0/sh22. PNGLNG has little strategic national importance to Australia. The contract customers are all Asian (China. Japan, Taiwan). PNGLNG has a little bit of spot capacity23.
If the above doesn’t happen, PNGLNG would work better as a standalone equity, not mixed into the Australian asset base. PNGLNG cash flow has significantly contributed towards building Pikka and Barossa, however that is now no longer needed.
A split of PNGLNG from Santos would help Australian resident dividend focused investors collect high franking on StubCo, whilst the rest of us holding the equity for the actual underlying assets would appreciate the pureplay LNG exposure in close vicinity to key customers.The Santos StubCo would likely be very interesting. Say it trades at half of the current Santos equity, its cashflow profile would be excellent and well worth owning, would be able to return significant cash, be able to take a lot of depreciation and be large enough for institutional investors.
Similar equities in the US get valued at better multiples. Pretty much any Aussie listed oil/gas/energy company is better off in private hands or merged into something that can be listed on US markets to support S&P500 Index inclusion. Sorry juniors.
In the business as usual scenario, 2026 looks excellent for Santos. I’m genuinely looking forward to their results.
Aussie super funds should be buying Santos hand over fist. The equity is fairly well priced, has significant near term catalysts with long life high return assets and can meanwhile feign success in saving the Australian East Coast Gas supply.
In all scenarios above there is an equity return available via a transaction and a more concentrated portfolio of assets that all pull their weight.
There is significant room for further Institutional ownership, current ownership is surprisingly fragmented. There seems to be no significant holders other than two index funds, which themselves only represent ~12% percent of the equity. (State Street at 6%, Vanguard at 6%).
The whole idea of Aussie Superannuation funds should be to own assets like this. Key of importance to the nation, good value, reasonable yields and of long term nature. Australian Superannuation funds are generally farsical capital behemoths working just 9-5 and mostly buying overpriced Banks, BHP, Index Funds, Table Salt mines, Profitless Landlease communities and high multiple toaster manufacturers.
I am personally shocked there is such low institutional ownership here and none of the bigger Australian Super names are near this thing in size. (The highest seems to be REST with 1%).
Disclosure
This information is for general knowledge and informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or other professional advice.
I have a reasonable long position established many years ago. I also had OilSearch following their 2020 falls, I recently added in April 2025.
I have no association with the company other than the equity holding.
No Assistive Technologies were used in the creation of this material. I didn’t even run a grammar check sorry :).
This article is a little rougher than I would have liked, I wrote it in a couple late nights, I’m still up at 2am getting it ready for Monday morning.
Interestingly I find Aussie Oil & Gas companies to have significantly less popular brands vs Aussie Mining, namely BHP. BHP seems to have a patriotism that Aussie energy companies can’t capture, yet the businesses are quite alike.
Unless you simply roll the truck down a hill, https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54161343
Hydro is a notable exception here. It’s a real solution in terms of energy storage, yet Snowy 2 is proving my point on the cost side. A $2B project likely to cost $20B+ when it’s done.
Context is Australian, with little available Hydro.
AEMO Quarterly Energy Dynamics, Q4 2022. Haven’t come across newer data.
AEMO NEM Suspension Report, July 2022
This pricing is insane. 1GW is approximately 1MMBTU. Gas prices in the US are $2-$4/mmbtu
An electricity grid should be boring. No one should know or care about the mix from moment to moment.
Perhaps one of the sillier pieces of infrastructure in Australia.
The metaphoric “Selling Ice to Eskimo’s”.
I’d speculate the gas would be bought from Qatar, Indonesia or the USA.
This is merely just a recent memorable debacle, there is many like this
https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/victoria-uses-13pc-of-entire-year-s-gas-budget-in-just-three-days-20250612-p5m6v7
No, I do not have a model (sorry SHAC).
There’s a much wider piece around also owning Aussie Power Generation Assets, including the Coal plants which I theorise are completely impossible to turn off without dramatic increases in gas/nuclear plant output. What value to do you assign to the Coal plants powering Australia? The market values currently these a lot closer to zero than I would expect.
Please prove me wrong. See you in 2031.
Woodside are vocal on this too, but their actions speak otherwise; Louisiana LNG a perfect example. US$18B! This is partially why I prefer STO to WDS.
Australian Energy Producers conference, May 2025
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business%2Fmining-energy%2Fsantos-ceo-likens-victoria-to-north-korea-in-attitude-and-appeal-for-investment%2Fnews-story%2Fde2dbf8523bb236175244a2c15e00c55?amp
Volatility in $STO has been high in 2025. The Equity has moved 50% in under 3 months.
This was the third (and final) offer within 6 months. There were limited rumors of these takeover offers in the AFR.
Specifically $STO remains $7+ in the medium term, no large negative macro shocks.
Remember, oil assets constantly deplete. Hydrocarbons need growth to stand still.
This will make me sad. I want the asset. Presumably Pikka is not included.
Australia could be a great customer one day :).