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PetroKazakhstan shareholders OK CNPC bid
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-10-19 08:43 In recent weeks, the deal was thrown into doubt by Kazakh lawmakers, who
sought greater control over their country's oil resources, and the stock skidded
to well below the bid price.
The government of President Nursultan Nazarbayev passed a law last week that
gives the state the right to intervene in the sale of foreign-held oil stakes.
PetroKazakhstan chief executive Bernard
Isautier smiles while being interviewed after shareholders' approval to
sell the company to China State Oil at a meeting in Calgary October 18,
2005.[Reuters] | Kazakh Oil Minister Vladimir
Shkolnik said he was angered by PetroKazakhstan and its adviser, Goldman Sachs,
for not keeping him well informed.
CNPC said on Monday it had managed to smooth over the rifts by agreeing to
transfer a stake in PetroKazakhstan to state-controlled KazMunaiGaz in some
11th-hour diplomacy. The Kazakh government's Paris-based public relations firm
said CNPC agreed to hand over 33 percent.
One analyst said the government's moves did not bode well for interest in
Kazakhstan among foreign investors. Sky-high oil prices have fueled increased
energy nationalism in other countries as well, Peters & Co. Ltd. analyst
Wilf Gobert said.
"Going back to the developments in Russia and the intervention of the state
in private companies, we've seen a mounting wall of ... obstruction by
bureaucrats and politicians who are destabilizing confidence in investing,"
Gobert said.
Russian oil major Lukoil, a partner in a joint venture with PetroKazakhstan,
has said it plans to ask the Alberta court to halt the deal because it believes
it has rights to the venture stake that will be transferred to
CNPC.
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