It's not a reason to overpay... If loosing SNE was a major risk...

It's not a reason to overpay... If loosing SNE was a major risk they could easily have as an example told COP to reissue PE notices and bought Quadrant for example.
If you bought FAR for 750M US + spend to date + purchase price of COP share, you are approaching $1.4B with another $1.5B CAPEX.
Quadrent would have been similar reserves, cheaper, instant cashflow higher production rates etc. Buying FAR would not be the best use of capital. There is a global market for M&A, Australia is tiny in O&G terms, I really can't see a reason WPL should get twisted off on FAR or one project in particular.