Beach Energy boss to exit the business

Law firms Slater & Gordon and Shine lawyers said they were investigating class-actions, but are yet to file proceedings.

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Adelaide-based Beach Energy operates onshore and offshore oil and gas production in five basins across Australia and New Zealand.

The majority of Beach Energy’s production comes from the Cooper Basin through its 35 per cent interest in fields operated by Santos, and it’s wholly owned Western Flank fields.

The company this year struck a deal to make its foray into Australia’s booming global liquefied natural gas (LNG) trade. The company signed a heads-of-agreement with BP subsidiary BP Singapore to supply its 3.75 million-tonne share of LNG from its jointly owned Waitsia development in Western Australia’s Mid West region.

Beach chairman Glenn Davis paid tribute to Mr Kay for transforming the company into a strategically diverse business that was “well-positioned to deliver material gas production into the tightening Australian east coast, New Zealand and international LNG markets”.

“I want to thank Matt for his efforts in helping transform Beach into the multi-basin upstream oil and gas company it is today,” Mr Davis said. “I wish him all the very best for his future endeavours.”

The key to the transformation led by Mr Kay was the $1.585 billion purchase of Origin Energy spin-off Lattice energy in 2017.

The deal took Beach into the unfamiliar territory of offshore oil and gas with interest a 60 per cent interest in fields in the Otway Basin off the Victorian coast where it and partner Mitsui are spending up to $1.3 billion to bring on new production by mid-2022.

The Lattice acquisition doubled the size of the company.

Beach Energy shares dropped 5.5 cents, or 3.9 per cent, yesterday to $1.34 a share.

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