Two rivals are continuing their bidding battle for Cove Energy.
Royal Dutch Shell and Thailand's PTT Exploration have extended their bidding campaign in an effort to secure the acquistion of Cove Energy. Shell moved the deadline on its £1.12bn ($1.74bn) bid to July 11 after PTT had added extra time to its £1.22bn ($1.89bn) offer equivalent to 240p/share.
The corporate tug-of-war, which began in February this year with an offer from Shell, continued with PTT responding to Shell's latest move by again extending its offer deadline to July 13 and laying down the challenge to Shell of upping its bid - equivalent to 220p/share - or walking away from the deal.
The battle of bids would net the winner a company with access to a key stake in Mozambique's Rovuma Offshore Block 1 - a potentially highly lucrative gas field operated by US exploration company Andarko.
Ironically, although Shell's offer is lower than that of PTT, the Dutch oil giant has received notifications of acceptance equating to 3.5% of Coves shares, against PTT's significantly smaller 0.25% worth of acceptances. Meanwhile, Cove Energy's shares continue to rise, hitting 272p at one stage, as the rivals up the ante.