Billionaire Brian Sheffield, a third-generation oil and gas executive from Texas, has bet $110 million on the Petalu Basin in the Northern Territory to become one of the world’s next big shale gas projects.
Sheffield, who worked part of his early career as an investment banker in Sydney and whose father Scott Sheffield ran a $60 billion oil and gas company, bought stakes in ASX-listed Tamboran Resources and Empire Energy, last year.
Since last November, Brian Sheffield has spent $102 million to acquire a 15.2 percent stake in Tamboran, making him the company’s largest shareholder. In September, Tamboran purchased the assets of Origin Energy Beetaloo, making it the largest player exploring gas in this basin.
In June of this year, Sheffield spent nearly $8 million to become a shareholder in Empire, fueling speculation that he might try to merge Tamboran and Empire. “He made a big play at Petalo,” noted Empire President Paul Espy, who also heads the Menzies Research Center for Research in the Liberal Party. “What is his end – you can come to your own conclusion.”
Texas Oil and Gas CEO Brian Sheffield sold his company Parsley Energy to his father’s company, Pioneer Natural Resources, in 2020 for $4.5 billion.
Tamboran CEO Joel Riddell said Sheffield was publicizing his bets. “Brian has told me he’s interested in the whole tub. He wants to spread his bets.”
Former Prime Minister Scott Morrison earmarked the Betaloo Basin for $220 million in public investment as part of the government’s gas-powered economic recovery plan, which included government funding to support exploration and drilling by companies such as Tamboran and Empire in the Beetaloo.
The Federal Senate is currently investigating whether taxpayer money should be used to support private investment in Beetaloo.
“He made a great play at Beetaloo.”
Paul Espy, President of Empire Energy
Sheffield joins a number of the richest listed in Empire’s stock registry such as Tasmanian billionaire Dale Elphinstone and also Paul Fudge, who has a net worth of approximately $770 million.
After acquiring Beetaloo’s gas assets at Origin, Tamboran and Sheffield also found themselves partnering with Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. Vekselberg is the largest shareholder in Falcon Oil & Gas, which remains a non-operating partner of Origin’s assets.
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Empire and Tamboran have attracted the attention of wealthy investors who believe that Beetaloo’s gas reserves have the potential to unlock wealth and redefine the Australian energy market, which is in the midst of a crisis.
Despite being one of the world’s largest gas exporters, Australia is short of gas to supply the country’s east coast, which has driven up domestic gas prices, adding to cost pressures on businesses and households.
Last month, the federal government signed an agreement with gas exporters Shell, ConocoPhillips and Santos, to support domestic supplies for the next year, following a warning from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) that the nation faces a major gas shortage. for domestic industry in 2023.
The Northern Territory Government estimates that Beetaloo could contain more than 200,000 petajoules of gas, although not all of that will be recoverable if the projects prove viable. Reserves dwarf Australia’s annual energy consumption, which was 5,790 petajoules in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2021, according to the federal government.
The first production of gas from Beetaloo, if it occurs, will not be in 2025. However, there remains strong public and environmental opposition to gas fracking in the Northern Territory, and more broadly to investment in developing fossil fuel projects.
Pressure to tackle climate change by reducing the country’s dependence on fossil fuels has also led to some pension funds and banks refusing to lend or invest in gas and coal projects. This, in turn, has led to an increase in private capital in those sectors.
Despite opposition to investing in fossil fuels, both the federal government and the opposition agreed that gas remains a necessity as the economy transitions to renewables and a clean energy future.
The role of any Beetaloo gas in tackling supply shortages in Australia has been questionable, according to Grattan Institute Energy Program Director Tony Wood, a former Origin Energy executive. He said the first challenge would be transporting gas from Beetaloo to the country’s east coast. Most people would have said that the most likely destination for this gas is Darwin and then export. There is some capacity to upgrade the North Gemina gas pipeline between the Northern Territory and Jebel Isa, but this is very limited.”
The government has made it clear that it will not invest public funding in any gas infrastructure in the long term because that would create a political challenge if nothing else. It is clear that the government’s goal is to gradually think of gas as having no long-term future.”
“The government has made it clear that it will not invest public funding in any gas infrastructure in the long term because that would create a political challenge,” says Tony Wood, director of the energy program at the Grattan Institute.attributed to him:Oscar Coleman
Tamboran CEO Joel Riddell said the Sheffield family’s interest in Beetaloo arose when Bryan Sheffield’s father, Scott, was a director of the Santos Board of Directors between 2014 through 2017. Santos was exploring for gas in the McArthur Basin in the Northern Territory, of which the Beetaloo Basin is a subsidiary.
“When Scott Sheffield was on the Santos board, he knew about Petalo, and it was still kind of in the early days of the drilling programs, and the raw data was coming in,” Riddell said. “What Brian shared with me was that his dad was really high on the early scores, and to the point where some folks from Santos traveled to Dallas and sat down with his team at Pioneer. There was an early acknowledgment from Scott that Petalo has the potential to be the next big shale game. In the world “.
Riedel appeared last week before the Senate investigation into oil and gas exploration and production in Petalo. Its president, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, held Riddle responsible for failing to respond to repeated requests to appear.
There was an early confession from Scott [Sheffield] “Petalu has the potential to be the world’s next big game shale,” says Joel Riddell, CEO of Tamboran Resources.
“Mr. Riddell, you initially said you were satisfied with the committee’s interest in your company,” Senator Hanson Young said. “Refusing to come to a Senate hearing and ignoring a subpoena from the Senate doesn’t really sound like how you’d respond to being flattered. It is very unusual for a Senate committee to make a subpoena, and in previous situations where the refusal has occurred, it can That it ends in the Supreme Court.”
Political and regulatory challenges will now be on the radar of Tamboran’s largest shareholder Bryan Sheffield.
Sheffield did not immediately follow his family into the oil and gas business, which his grandfather Joe Parsley started in the 1960s. Instead, he was an avid tennis player, who trained at John Newcombe Tennis Ranch in Texas, before deciding to study business at Southern Methodist University.
After graduating in 2001, he took up an investment banking job in Sydney; He later worked as a commodity trader in Chicago, then traded interest rates in Europe, before returning to work for his father at Pioneer Natural Resources when he was 29 years old.
In 2008, he founded his own company Parsley Energy, named after his grandfather. He was joined at that company by one of his father’s pioneering executives, and initially he took over the management of 109 original wells owned by Joe Parsley since the 1960s in West Texas.
Then Brian expanded Parsley’s investments in the oil and gas sector. In October 2020, Scott Sheffield’s Pioneer Natural Resources acquired his son Parsley’s company, in a $4.5 billion deal.
Brian, who once told a reporter that Sydney was his favorite travel destination, is now a managing partner at Formentera Partners, a private equity firm focused on energy investments. He was not available to comment on this article. He is expected to visit Australia and Petalu later this year.
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Originally published at Melbourne News Vine
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