Oil Search Shares Jump on Report CNPC Venture May Bid (Update4)
By Angela Macdonald-Smith
Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Oil Search Ltd., the biggest holder of natural gas resources in Papua New Guinea, rose the most in five years after the South China Morning Post said the company may be a takeover target for China National Petroleum Corp.
China National Petroleum and its unit PetroChina Co. are studying a bid of as much as $5 billion for the Port Moresby- based company, the newspaper reported today, citing people it didn't name. Oil Search has had talks with China National Petroleum on potential natural gas sales, not on any takeover offer, said Ann Diamant, a spokeswoman.
China, the world's fastest-growing major economy, set a target for natural gas to provide 5.3 percent of its energy needs by 2010, up from the current 3 percent. Chinese and Hong Kong- based companies spent $16.4 billion the past two years buying foreign energy assets, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
``We thought that CNPC would be the guys that would most likely bid for them, they have been waiting there like a coiled tiger,'' said Aiden Bradley, an oil and gas analyst at ABN Amro Australia Pty. in Sydney. ``CNPC has three LNG import terminals in China which they have approval for and no gas for them yet.''
Oil Search surged as much as 75 cents, or 19 percent, to A$4.60 on the Australian Stock Exchange. The stock was at A$4.29 at 2:36 p.m. in Sydney, with about 28 million shares having changed hands by that time, almost four times the daily average. A $5 billion offer would be equivalent to about A$4.46 a share.
