Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). Our first question comes from Brian Singer – Goldman Sachs.
Brian Singer – Goldman Sachs
I wanted to follow up on your point on acquisitions. I just wanted to see where you stand in terms of the importance to Apache, how bid-asks are and the importance of adding new U.S. shale assets to the portfolio?
G. Steven Farris
Well, everybody continues to believe that Mecca's out there, Brian, somewhere and the bid and the ask will stay pretty far apart. Although I will tell you we don't go to auctions so most of the things we look at are negotiated so that the auction process doesn't enter into the picture. With respect to shale gas in the United States, obviously we continue to look. I would think that's probably something that you'd have to look up and we'd tell you we did it rather than explain that we're doing it.
Brian Singer – Goldman Sachs
And then just thinking about Australia, can you talk about how you're thinking, or your latest thoughts on sourcing Julimar/Brunella, etc. and the potential participation and status of LNG liquefaction?
G. Steven Farris
Well, I don't think it's any secret that there's two competing LNG facilities that are going in there, by two major LNG producers in the world, and we are very closely approaching a time then when we're going to have to get to the point where we decide which one that we are going to go with, and that should probably happen this year.
Brian Singer – Goldman Sachs
And do you think you would sign a supply contract for off-take or participate in that at the same time? Or would it initially be more of a commitment to participate just in the liquefaction with a supply contract to be signed at a later date?
G. Steven Farris
Well, I think they have to go together to some extent. You certainly don't want to commit to the facility – where both of those projects are today is they're going into final engineering and design and a FID or actually investment decision, final investment decision probably won't be made for 18 months. So what we're looking at right now is which party that makes the most sense for us, assuming we don't take it to the domestic market, which party to us makes the most sense for us in the long term. And then it's going to be a process.
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