Woodside Rises After Speculation of Royal Dutch Shell Swap

Woodside Petroleum Ltd. (WPL) rose the most in 19 months mining rock grinding machine supplier in chinain Sydney on speculation Australia’s second- biggest oil and gas producer may arrange an assets-for-shares swap with its largest stockholder, Royal Dutch Shell Plc. (RDSA)

Woodside increased as much as 5.6 percent to A$48.11, the most since Aug. 20, 2009. The shares traded at A$46.77 at 1:42 p.m. local time, paring the gain to 2.7 percent, compared with an advance of 1.2 percent for the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index. Woodside could exchange stakes in liquefied natural gas projects for Shell’s remaining shares in the company, worth more than A$8 billion ($8 billion), analysts led by Sydney-based David Heard at Bank of America Merrill Lynch wrote March 18. Under such a deal, Woodside may swap a 30 percent stake in the Pluto LNG project, an 18.5 percent stake in the Browse venture and 20.7 percent of the Sunrise development, the report said...