China oil, Eni lose in Unocal bid
EL SEGUNDO, Calif., April 4 (UPI) -- The China National Offshore Oil Corp., based in Beijing, and Italy's Eni SPA appear to have lost to ChevronTexaco in the bid to acquire the Unocal Corp.
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China National had been considered the leading bidder until the weekend, with an attractive cash offer, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
Separately, CheveronTexas, already the second largest oil company after ExxonMobil, announced an agreement Monday to acquire the El Segundo-Calif.-based, Unocal in a stock and cash deal valued at $16.4 billion.
The Journal said it was not clear why the Chinese efforts failed, but its interest forced other companies to bid on ninth-largest Unocal.
The ChevronTexaco-Unocal agreement must be approved by Unocal shareholders and regulatory agencies.
While Unocal has no refining and marketing operations, it has attractive oil and natural-gas reserves at a time when energy companies are struggling to find enough new oil and natural gas to replace what they pump every year, the Journal said.
Most of Unocal's best assets are in Southeast Asia, near the fast-growing Chinese and Indian economies that are both consuming rapidly increasing amounts of energy, the report said.
In addition to Unocal, Occidental Petroleum, Anadarko Petroleum and Devon Energy, are considered possible takeover targets, the Journal said.
Copyright 2005 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
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