Cnooc Argentine Venture to Buy BP Stake in Pan American for $7.1 Billion

China National Offshore Oil CorporationImage via Wikipedia
Bridas Corp., the oil company owned by Chinese crude producer Cnooc Ltd. and Argentina’s billionaire Bulgheroni family, agreed to pay BP Plc $7.06 billion for the 60 percent it doesn’t already own of Pan American Energy LLC.

Bridas Energy Holdings Ltd. and Cnooc, which each own 50 percent of Bridas Corp., will pay $2.47 billion apiece to finance the acquisition, with the remaining $2.12 billion to come from third-party loans or additional funds from the two companies, Cnooc said in a statement yesterday. The deal will probably be completed in the first half of next year.

The Beijing-based company is building on the $3.1 billion stake purchase in Bridas in March to expand its oil resources in Latin America as demand surges. Pan American, Argentina’s largest crude exporter, produces about 240,000 barrels a day and holds 1.54 billion barrels of proven reserves.

“The valuation is fairly attractive,” Neil Beveridge, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., said in a telephone interview. “They are buying fairly mature oil and gas assets, so the question is how much Cnooc can squeeze out of these in the coming years,” he said.

To read full article from source click here

No comments:

Post a Comment