Cnooc May Consider
Buying Shell Stakes
Offshore Of Nigeria
By BENOÎT FAUCON
November 22, 2007
LONDON — China’s Cnooc Ltd. is considering buying interests in Nigerian blocks held by Royal Dutch Shell PLC, a person familiar with the matter said yesterday — the latest indication of China’s rising assertiveness in Africa’s oil sector.
Shell is considering selling interests in two Nigerian offshore blocks as it restructures its business in the troubled region, people familiar with the matter said Tuesday. A block is a geographic area of territory over which the owner holds exploration and drilling rights.
The Anglo-Dutch oil company has said it expected to sell about $9 billion in assets in 2007.
A Cnooc spokesman declined to comment.
The block stakes, each amounting to 49.8%, could fetch as much as $900 million, a person familiar with the matter said, adding that Nigerian oil companies had also expressed interest. Agip, a unit of Eni SpA, holds the remaining 50.2% in each block.
In January 2006, Cnooc, China’s largest offshore operator by output, bought a 45% interest in Nigeria’s Akpo field for $2.27 billion. The same month, it bought a 35% interest in the license to explore for oil in a Nigerian offshore block.
China is on course to overtake the U.S. as the world’s largest energy consumer soon after 2010, according to the International Energy Agency, but its domestic oil production is set to peak around the same time, leaving a supply gap that will have to be filled by foreign oil. As a result, Chinese oil companies are investing massively in Africa, searching for oil to fuel the country’s booming economy.
China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., known as Sinopec, paid $692.2 million for stakes in three deepwater oil blocks in Angola last year. China National Petroleum Corp., the parent company of PetroChina Co., has interests in Sudan.
In addition to direct investments by oil companies, China’s government has used a strategy of offering loans and aid to African countries to secure access to resources.
Separately, Shell said it signed a preliminary deal to buy a stake in Regal Petroleum PLC’s Ukrainian unit for $50 million in cash and a commitment to pay field expenditures, underscoring the Anglo-Dutch oil company’s focus on Ukraine as it tries to expand its foothold in the oil and gas-rich former Soviet Union.
The deal comes on top of other acquisitions the Anglo-Dutch oil major made in the country, as it seeks to regain lost ground after losing control of its key Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project in the Russian Far East earlier this year.
Under a memorandum of understanding, Shell has agreed to buy 51% of Regal Petroleum (Jersey) Ltd., a Regal subsidiary that indirectly holds gas and condensate field licenses in Ukraine. As part of the deal, Shell also committed to spending $360 million to develop the fields, which would be jointly owned by Shell and Regal.
Shell said the deal is subject to due diligence and “final transactional documentation.” Regal stressed that the signing of the Shell memorandum of understanding “does not imply that any transaction is certain to occur.”
The tentative agreement drove up Regal shares by 10% in early trading, but the stock had fallen 7.8% to £1.59 ($3.29) in late trade in an overall lower London market. Regal’s shares haven’t fully recovered since the company announced in May 2005 that a promising well in Greece wasn’t commercially viable, driving the stock down 60% at the time.
Shell’s shares were up 1.9% at £20.23 on the London Stock Exchange.
–David Winning in Beijing contributed to this article.
Write to Benoît Faucon at [email protected]
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Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
