Woodside Petroleum has gone into a trading halt to launch a $2.5 billion equity raising to fund the purchase of a greater stake in the Scarborough gas field off Western Australia.

The energy giant says it has a deal to acquire ExxonMobil’s 50% share of the Scarborough gas field in the Carnarvon Basin, giving Woodside a 75% interest.

“The acquisition of the additional interest in Scarborough provides greater alignment, control and certainty over a low-cost, high value opportunity ahead of a global LNG supply gap,” says Woodside CEO Peter Coleman.

“Today’s raising puts Woodside and our shareholders in a strong position. It will allow us to develop new supply that we expect to be materially value accretive.”

Woodside shareholders will be entitled to acquire one new Woodside share for every 9 shares held at a price of $27.00. Woodside last traded at $31.08.

The company also today announced its annual results, with profit up by 18% to $1.02 billion

The full-year dividend was 98 cents a share, up from 83 cents.

The 2017 full year results:

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