Fire and smoke billow from a petrochemical plant in Lanzhou, Gansu Province January 7, 2010. Five people were confirmed dead and one still missing since Thursday in an explosion at the petrochemical plant belonging to Chinas top state-owned oil firm CNPC, Xinhua news agency reported. Picture taken January 7, 2010.Hong Kong (News Today) - China's quest for global energy resources is shifting into higher gear as the country's oil giants seal bigger, more complex deals to help fuel their country's economic boom.
Bankers see China's national oil producers increasingly buying companies, not just assets, and using their deep pockets to acquire technology to extract harder-to-reach resources. While they likely will keep combing emerging markets for energy deals in 2011, they may be tempted to hunt elsewhere -- including in or near the U.S.
Energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie says diesel, gasoline and gasoil demand in China is rising about 8% annually. China's appetite for oil won't peak until 2025, according to UBS.
To meet that demand, China's biggest energy companies have gone on a buying spree. Last year was a record year for China's oil and gas acquisitions, with $24.3 billion of deals, up from $17.1 billion in 2009, according to data provider Dealogic.
The largest Chinese deal, state-owned China Petrochemical's acquisition of a 40% stake in Repsol's Brazilian oil assets for $7.1 billion, signaled China's expanding profile in Latin America, where it bought more assets than any other nation last year. It also showed the Chinese were willing to pay more than the market expected.
“The richest pickings are appearing in South America and, to some extent, Africa and Indonesia,“ said Stephen Gore, head of merger and acquisitions and corporate finance Asia at UBS.
China's oil companies are busy diversifying their sources of hydrocarbons, and bankers say they will continue to have an edge in jurisdictions where U.S. and European oil companies have found it politically difficult to seal deals, such as in Sudan, Myanmar, Iran and Syria.
They also may expand in the Gulf of Mexico. Independent oil companies are likely to sell assets there, say bankers, as insurance costs and regulation escalate after BP's Macondo blowout in April, which resulted in the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
“Who is going to buy? I posit the Chinese will acquire significant stakes in the Gulf of Mexico in the next 12 to 24 months,“ said Peter O'Malley, head of resources and energy for Asia Pacific at HSBC.
Cnooc already has bought small stakes in deep-water projects in the Gulf owned by Norway's Statoil. Given that three-quarters of the world's exploration and production companies are based in North America, the Chinese are likely to bid for U.S. companies, bankers said.
“All the Chinese majors will be in North America in the next two years,“ Mr. O'Malley said.
Cnooc's ill-fated 2005 bid for California's Unocal, which collapsed after some U.S. lawmakers opposed the deal on national security grounds, underscored the political risk China's energy sector faces in hunting for U.S. deals. Yet in 2010, Cnooc acquired oil-and-gas assets in the Eagle Ford Shale project in South Texas for $1.1 billion.
One area Chinese buyers could focus on is projects that use new technology to extract energy from unconventional sources such as oil sands or gas trapped in coal. Such projects are attractive to Chinese buyers because it gives them a chance not only to gather hydrocarbons but to learn new technology to develop China's potentially massive gas reserves.
Global companies are eager to bring in minority partners with deep pockets, such as the Chinese, to minimize financial risk.
“In the shale gas industry, there is a large amount of technology transfer from North America to Asia,“ said Roger Kennedy, head of energy and natural resources in Asia Pacific for J.P. Morgan Chase.
A less controversial way to acquire hydrocarbons would be to partner with the world's super majors, such as BP. International oil companies are rebalancing their portfolios by cutting their exposure to some jurisdictions, as Repsol is doing in Latin America, and adjusting their asset mix to take into consideration long-term trends in commodity prices.
“As many oil and gas companies examine the continued re-balancing of their portfolios, acquisition opportunities will be available for Asian oil and gas companies,“ Mr. Kennedy said.
The largest Chinese oil firms are being more flexible in choosing targets, say bankers. Instead of shipping products straight to China, they are bidding on assets that give them a hedge against a long term, broad rise in commodity prices, and chips to trade for other commodities China needs in the short term.
“The Chinese are increasingly looking at assets that they might be able to exchange for stakes in other projects, like pieces on a chess board,“ said Todd Marin, head of investment banking in Asia Pacific for J.P. Morgan.
China's state-owned Sinochem Group bought a 40% stake in the Peregrino field off the coast of Brazil from Statoil for $3.07 billion in May. It may well be that none of that oil goes back to China after production starts next year, said one banker, but instead is traded for other products.
Chinese firms also are increasingly competing among themselves for the less-political deals, rather than the state picking a champion, making it more likely they will be successful in auctions for assets, bankers said. An early example of this shift came when Sinochem saw off competition from Cnooc for the Peregrino stake.
Source : kompas
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