“Santos is looking more and more vulnerable as a target,” the Australian Financial Review’ Street Talk column commented ahead of Santos’ investor seminar this morning.

This speculation comes as low oil prices impact share prices across the whole sector.

One of the key takeaways from the investor seminar was the confirmation that the Gladstone LNG project will start up in the second half of 2015 – with Santos only previously saying it would occur within the 2015 calendar year.

“With commissioning gas due to reach the LNG plant on Curtis Island next month, some analysts had expected that exports may start as early as the June quarter of 2015,” the AFR reported.

Santos shares were up 1% by midday (AEST) with the company’s upstream update being a particular standout.

While Santos might be increasingly considered takeover prey, exploration boss Bill Ovenden said the company had screened or evaluated over 120 deals this year as it aimed to continue to regenerate its resources and reserves portfolio.

It has involvement in up to five planned wild cat wells with ExxonMobil drilling the long-awaited Hides Deep well (Santos 24%) in Papua New Guinea at the moment.

Ovenden confirmed this well, located in the key field of the PNG LNG operation, was a fantastic opportunity to underpin a third train expansion.

The Lasseter-1 and Crown-1 finds in the Browse Basin – Santos’ two largest operated discoveries to date – are the most prized assets of its exploration portfolio but they are still being assessed for appraisal and development opportunities.

However, Ovenden revealed that clear 3D seismic data indicated the gas was hosted within high quality sandstone reservoirs – differing from some of the volcanic reservoirs found in this offshore region such as at the Greater Poseidon field.

Santos also has a stake in an oil-targeting offshore well which is being drilled in Malaysia and has another planned in this region in the March quarter with both wells (Santos 25%) unnamed at this stage – possibly indicating a haste to get them underway.

In other news, Santos managing director David Knox said 13 LNG cargoes from GLNG’s commissioning phase had been sold with the long term contracts to supply Petronas and South Korean to start once they are complete.

Knox said the oil price decline was faster than “anybody” expected and confirmed that Santos was “relentlessly” cutting costs and curtailing capital investment.

Santos is also advancing a potential European hybrid issue, announced on Monday, to refinance debt and build its balance sheet.

Santos chief financial officer Andrew Seaton attempted to put any merger and acquisition or capital expenditure-based fears at rest.

“This is not M&A-related at all, this is not capex-overrun-related at all,” he said at the briefing.

“This is just prudent good business, being ahead of the curve.”