By Wang Ying
Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- PetroChina Co., Asia's biggest oil producer, may buy energy companies made vulnerable by the global credit crisis to expand output and meet rising fuel demand in China, Chairman Jiang Jiemin said.
PetroChina is studying the possibility of acquiring financially stressed resources companies, Jiang told reporters at a shareholders meeting in Beijing today.
Oil companies in China have resumed their quest for global resources after a two-year hiatus as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and falling commodity prices prompt a sell-off in share markets, making companies cheaper to acquire. The MSCI AC Asia Pacific Energy Index has fallen 55 percent this year.
``The drop in oil prices and the current bank crisis offer good opportunities for PetroChina to consolidate resources,'' Jiang said.
China Petrochemical Corp., the nation's second-biggest oil producer, last month offered to pay $1.8 billion for Canada's Tanganyika Oil Co. to gain oil and gas operations in Syria.
In a separate transaction, Sinopec Group, as China Petrochemical is known, and China National Offshore Oil Corp., the country's third-largest oil company agreed to pay Marathon Oil Corp. $1.8 billion for a stake in an Angolan oil field, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month, citing unidentified people familiar with the negotiations.
China National Offshore, the parent of Hong Kong-listed Cnooc Ltd., has bid between $300 million and $700 million for natural gas assets in Trinidad and Tobago owned by Talisman Energy Inc., the report said.
Mergers and acquisitions by Chinese state-oil companies have dwindled since 2006 as oil prices climbed, reaching a record $147.27 a barrel on July 11.
In October 2006, China International Trust & Investment Corp. said it will pay $1.9 billion to buy the Kazakhstan oil assets of Canada's Nations Energy Co.
To contact the reporter on this story: Wang Ying in Beijing at wang30@bloomberg.net.
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