Shell's $70 Billion BG Takeover Receives ACCC Approval

Engineering News reported that the Australia Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said it would not oppose Royal Dutch Shell’s (NYSE:RDS.A,LSE:RDSA) $70 billion BG Group (LSE:BG) takeover.
As quoted in the market news:

The ACCC approval is one of five regulatory clearances required for the takeover offer, of which two still remain outstanding, including Foreign Investment Review Board approval and approval from China’s Ministry of Commerce.
Shell in April announced plans to gain control of BG Group’s Queensland Curtis liquefied natural gas (QCLNG) project in Gladstone, which turns gas from coal seams into LNG. The $20-billion project loaded its first LNG cargo at the end of December last year. Production at QCLNG would plateau at eight-million tonnes a year by 2016.
“The ACCC’s view is that the proposed acquisition would be unlikely to substantially lessen competition in the wholesale natural gas market, in either Queensland or eastern Australia more broadly,” ACCC chairperson Rod Sims said.
Sims said that the ACCC had considered whether the proposed acquisition would reduce the supply of gas, or reduce competition to supply gas, to domestic customers by aligning Shell’s interest in Arrow Energy with BG’s LNG facilities in Queensland.
“The ACCC concluded that as Arrow is not currently focused on supplying domestic customers, and appears unlikely to be so in the future, aligning Arrow with an LNG operator would not change competition for the supply of gas to domestic customers.”
The ACCC also considered whether the proposed acquisition would be likely to lessen competition for the supply of gas to domestic customers by removing the potential for competition between Arrow and BG.

Click here to read the full Engineering News report.