Friday, August 10, 2007


Aug. 10, 2007 (Xinhua News Agency delivered by Newstex) -- Market hearsay: PetroChina bids for oil/gas assets of Devon Energy (NYSE:DVN)

BEIJING, Aug. 10 (CEIS) – China’s top oil/gas producer PetroChina (NYSE: PTR) was recently reported by Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post to be biding for the West African oil and gas assets of U.S.-based Devon Energy Corp. for 2 billion US dollars.

PetroChina, however, declined to confirm the report when approached by Xinhua-run Shanghai Securities News.

PetroChina earlier said it would issue no more than 4 billion A- shares on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the proceeds will be used for domestic oil/gas exploration and development, large refining project and natural gas pipeline construction, and overseas oil/gas assets acquisitions.

The companyÂ’s shareholders today have OK'ed the companyÂ’s plan of returning to mainland stock market. Analysts were quoted by Shanghai Securities News as saying that the A-share IPO will strengthen the companyÂ’s already strong financial power and therefore increase its overseas assets-buying ability.

It is reported that DevonÂ’s West African assets up for sale have 300 million barrels of oil equivalent of proven and probably reserves.



Newstex ID: XIN-0002-18805953


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