With impeccable timing, Mitsui & Co of Japan has made a three-cornered and now increasingly multinational contest for AWE Limited, the drilling minnow that found a still-growing onshore gas whale in Western Australia called Waitsia.

Arguably the most surprising aspect of Mitsui's $602 million, all-cash pitch for AWE is that pretty much no one seemed to anticipate the trading house of legend's interest in the little Australian that had already attracted bids from an opportunistic Chinese energy trader and an aggressively strategic Western Australian demi-billionaire.