Posted on 08/16/2005 12:27:05 PM PDT by Righty_McRight
HONG KONG State-owned oil companies in China and India are trying to buy a Canadian company with oil fields in Kazakhstan in the most direct competition yet for energy between Asia's two most populous countries.
A joint venture of China National Petroleum, China's biggest oil company, and PetroChina, its publicly traded subsidiary, offered roughly $3.2 billion late Monday for PetroKazakhstan, a person close to the negotiations said. Oil & Natural Gas, India's main government oil company, has already reportedly submitted a bid of $3.6 billion in cooperation with the steel maker Mittal Group.
PetroKazakhstan, whose shares are traded in Toronto, issued a statement from its headquarters in Calgary, Alberta, after the close of trading saying it had received proposals to acquire the entire company. The company announced in June that it had been approached, and investment bankers had identified the two companies as interested.
While the Chinese bid appeared to be lower than the Indian bid, Chevron's successful pursuit of Unocal this summer despite a higher bid from China National Offshore Oil Corp. has shown that the higher bid does not always win in a politically charged industry like energy.
China National Petroleum already has substantial oil investments of its own in Kazakhstan and has been trying to build a pipeline to carry the oil to China. The Chinese government has been actively courting Kazakhstan as well, partly because Beijing officials want to make sure that no Muslim insurgency develops in heavily Muslim areas of Xinjiang Province near the Kazakh border.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
Geez, bad news ALL AROUND.
Why bad news?
The faster the old USSR states can get their oil fields up to full production the faster the oil market will stabilize. At one point I saw estimates that there may be as much oil in centeral Asia as there is in the Middle East.
This is the company Chretien of Canada went to work for after he left office.
"PetroKazakhstan"
You're right Marron, Chretien's company. Interesting.
C'mon India!
Too bad it didnt work out :(... There was something sinister about why the Indians weren't allowed to re-bid. We asked for some information to hike our price and the company agreed to give us this but even before the information was sent to us in the London office, the sale was announced.
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