Singapore (Platts)--12Nov2012/235 am EST/735 GMT

Malaysia's state-owned Petronas has resubmitted its proposed $5.2 billion takeover of Canada's Progress Energy Resources, saying it will add more independent directors to the Canadian company's board to alleviate concerns about transparency and governance, the Financial Times reported Monday.

Petronas resubmitted its proposal last week, the FT said, citing CEO Shamsul Azhar Abbas.

"We've told them if you want more transparency from us we're prepared to increase the number of independent directors [on the Progress board]," Shamsul was quoted as saying. "In terms of governance and transparency we are not a publicly listed company but we behave as one. There is no interference from government."

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Petronas and Progress have been holding meetings with federal agency Industry Canada over the last three weeks after Minister of Industry Christian Paradis blocked the deal on October 19, saying he wasn't convinced the takeover was a "net benefit" to Canada.

Petronas made an offer in late June to take over Progress Energy, which owns three shale gas blocks at Altares, Lily and Kahta spread over 150,000 acres in North Montney in British Columbia. The companies had planned to build two gas liquefaction trains, each with a capacity of 3.7 million mt/year, an export terminal and pipeline access in British Columbia utilizing 1 Bcf/d of feedstock gas. First LNG production was targeted after 2016.

No further details were given on the resubmitted proposal, and Petronas official were not immediately available.

--Thomas Hogue, thomas_hogue@platts.com --Edited by Robert DiNardo, robert_dinardo@platts.com

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