Arrow agrees raised Shell/PetroChina offer

22nd Mar 2010 07:08

Australian coal bed methane producer Arrow Energy has agreed to a raised bid worth A$3.4bn (£2.06bn) bid from Royal Dutch Shell and PetroChina.Shell and PetroChina are now offering A$4.70 a share in cash for Arrow's Australian assets plus one share in a new listed company to be called Dart Energy. Dart will contain Arrow's Asian exploration assets. The original offer was worth A$4.45 a share.The new bid, 6% higher than the original offer, follows two weeks of talks after the initial offer and will give China its first direct stake in Australia's natural resources industry at a sensitive time in relations between the two countries.Four employees of miner Rio Tinto go on trial today for bribery and commercial spying, while Australia has also said it wants to cap state-owned companies' stakes in Australia's top resource firms to 15%.Arrow's Managing Director Nick Davies told reporters on Monday he was "reasonably confident" that shareholders would approve the revised offer.