MELBOURNE | BY SONALI PAUL: Business News | Thu Nov 19, 2015
Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) cleared a major hurdle to its $70 billion (46 billion pounds) takeover of BG Group (BG.L) on Thursday, winning a green light from Australia’s competition watchdog, which said the deal would not change the dynamics of the domestic market.
The acquisition will make Shell the world’s top liquefied natural gas (LNG) trader, although it still needs approval from China and Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board to go ahead as planned in early 2016.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) was not convinced by concerns raised by big local gas users that the takeover would hurt competition in eastern Australia if Shell’s Arrow Energy were to sell its coal seam gas into BG’s Queensland Curtis LNG plant for export.
“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,” commission chairman Rod Sims said in a statement.
Arrow was not currently supplying domestic customers and appeared unlikely to do so in the future, so aligning it to supply BG’s LNG plant would change nothing, Sims said.
Imposing conditions on the deal would have been “extremely difficult”, he added.
“There is too much uncertainty about the amount and timing for future gas supplies for the ACCC to be satisfied that Arrow and BG would be meaningful competitors in the domestic market in the absence of the acquisition.”
Shell and BG said the decision was crucial to the deal, after having secured approvals from anti-trust authorities in Brazil, the European Union and the United States.
“The addition of BG’s integrated gas assets in Australia to Shell’s global portfolio is one of the main strategic drivers behind the recommended combination, making ACCC approval a major step forward for the deal,” Shell CEO Ben van Beurden said in a statement.
Manufacturers worried about a lack of competitive gas supply on the east coast were disappointed the commission could not impose conditions on the merger but pinned their hopes on the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB).
“We believe that the FIRB have a duty to test the national interest and we would hope that conditions on the merger be considered,” Manufacturing Australia, a group that includes the biggest industrial east coast gas user, Incitec Pivot (IPL.AX).
(Reporting by Sonali Paul; Editing by Richard Pullin and Tom Hogue)
This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
