ExxonMobil Buying InterOil for $2.5B – Another LNG Love Story

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Love StoryIn early 2015, MDN brought you the news that Shell was making a play to buy BG Group for $69.7 billion (see LNG Love Story: Shell Makes Play to Buy BG in $69.7B Megamerger). As we pointed out, the purchase was all about LNG, or liquefied natural gas. Shell consummated the deal in February of this year (see Shell & BG One Company After Today, Shell Ponies Up $14.4B Cash). The "man on the street" may not realize it, but the Shell/BG merger was the biggest such merger in the oil and gas industry since Exxon purchased and merged with Mobil in an $89 billion deal, back in 1999. ExxonMobil is now making its own LNG play. Yesterday the company announced a deal to purchase InterOil, an LNG company based in Papua New Guinea, for $2.5 billion. Yes, a MUCH smaller deal than the Shell/BG merger--but it points out the direction things are heading. Big Oil is making tracks to become Big Gas. The writing is on the wall. Eventually oil and petroleum-based products will recede. The obvious alternative is clean-burning natural gas. When the world's largest oil companies say (and prove with their actions) that the future is in natural gas, well, that's a tectonic shift in the oil and gas industry...

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