so Beach's synergies benefits are evidently slated at $50m p/a,...

so Beach's synergies benefits are evidently slated at $50m p/a, on a h/yr profit of $95.7m - so the synergies are very material relative to profits.
BPTs acquisition of Lattice of >$1.6b is pretty huge - but the principles remain the same. Part of the acquistion strategy was to access those synergies. But the qlty of assets would have been primary, and the cashflow generated evidently was compelling.
But my point is, that if a predator was interested in COE, the same principles would apply.

Extract from The Aust
Beach Energy expects to get $50 million a year of cost-savings from its $1.6 billion acquisition of Origin Energy’s Lattice oil and gas business, including by closing Lattice’s Brisbane office, up from an original target of $20m.
Beach said it had boosted its $20m estimate of synergies from Lattice to $50m because of an extra $15m of corporate synergies and $15m of operating efficiencies identified since taking control of the assets.
Beach completed the Lattice acquisition of Origin’s non-core oil and gas production assets last month.
Chief executive Matt Kay said closure of Lattice’s Brisbane office would be part of the saving but did not say how many jobs would be lost.
At 11.50am (AEDT), Beach shares were 7.5c, or 5.93 per cent, higher at $1.34.
“These results cap off a truly transformational first half for Beach Energy,” Mr Kay said.
“We are tracking ahead of financial targets and this has allowed us to announce a more than doubling of synergy targets from the Lattice.”
RBC analyst Ben Wilson said the underlying profit had beaten his expectation of $87m.
“The net positive from the result was an increase to Lattice synergy targets,” Mr Wilson said.