Woodside subsidiary extends Energy Partners takeover offer

Woodside's US subsidiary ATS Inc has extended its cash tender offer for US oil and gas producer Energy Partners Ltd until next Friday, October 27.

The company had made an unsolicited offer in August to buy Energy Partners Ltd for $883 million to boost its production and presence in the Gulf of Mexico.

Woodside currently owns a 4.5 per cent stake in the company.

The full text of a company announcement is pasted below

ATS EXTENDS ITS ALL CASH PREMIUM TENDER OFFER FOR ENERGY PARTNERS UNTIL OCTOBER 27, 2006
Covington, Louisiana, October 20, 2006 -- ATS Inc., a subsidiary of Woodside Petroleum Ltd. (ASX: WPL), Australia's largest publicly listed oil and gas company, has extended its all cash tender offer of $23.00 per share (subject to increase to up to $24.00 under certain circumstances) for the shares of Energy Partners, Ltd. (NYSE: EPL).

The ATS offer has been extended to 11:59 pm, New York City time on Friday October 27, 2006, subject to potential further extension at the discretion of ATS.

ATS has filed a preliminary consent statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). EPL has set October 17, 2006 as the record date for determining the stockholders entitled to consent to action in writing without a meeting.

Once the consent statement has been declared effective by the SEC, ATS intends to solicit the consent of EPL stockholders to adopt the ATS proposals. The consent of a majority of the outstanding shares held by EPL stockholders is needed to replace all of the existing members of the EPL board with the individuals who will be named in the consent statement.

At the close of business on October 19, 2006 there had been 63,411 shares tendered.