(Reuters) -Mitsubishi Corp is in talks to acquire the production of shale and American Pipelines from Energy Management Aethon for around 8 billion dollars, a person familiar with the case said on Monday.
An agreement would give the Japanese conglomerate a substantial operation with natural gas adjacent to the coast of the American Gulf and the energy export facilities under development.
Talks between Mitsubishi and Aethon are underway, said the source, which warned that there was no guarantee that a transaction would be agreed and spoke under the cover of anonymity to discuss confidential deliberations.
While assets are held and operated by the investment company focused on American energy Aethon, colleagues managers of money Redbird Capital Partners and the Ontario teacher pension plan of Canada also contain significant issues.
Mitsubishi, Aethon, Redbird and the Ontario pension plan refused to comment.
Mitsubishi’s shares bordered below Tuesday in Tokyo after the news, down 0.3% to 2,880 yen, compared to a 0.3% gain in the wider Nikkei 225 index.
Mitsubishi is a major player in the World LNG sector, engaging in the entire value chain – from upstream production to trading, marketing and logistics. He has equity in several LNG projects in the world, including challenges in Malaysia, Oman, Australia, Russia, the United States and Canada, with total LNG production of around 13 million metric tonnes per year.
Active workers upstream of Aethon, which focuses mainly on the formation of Schist in Haynesville in Louisiana and East of Texas, constitute one of the largest producers of American gas which were private.
Reuters reported in November that Ethon explored options for its operations, which also included more than 1,400 miles (2,250 km) of pipelines across the Haynesville basin and Wyoming, where Aethon also has production assets.
Bloomberg News reported talks between Mitsubishi and Aethon on Monday, citing people familiar with the issue.
(Report by David French in New York; additional Yuka Obayashi reporting in Tokyo; Edition by Alison Williams and Muralikumar Annantharaman)
