China National Offshore Oil Corp., the country's third-largest oil company by assets, said Monday it will take over state-owned China National Chemical Construction Corp.
n a statement posted on CNOOC's Web site, company President Fu Chengyu said the merger is in line with the government's aim to consolidate centrally controlled companies.
No financial details were disclosed.
China National Chemical Construction is a trading, investment and manufacturing company that originally was affiliated with the former Ministry of Chemical Industry. A manufacturer of fertilizer, fine chemicals, automobile oil and other chemicals, it had net assets of 1.1 billion yuan (US$139 million;euro110 million) at the end of 2005, with sales for that year totaling 4.2 billion yuan (US$532 million; euro422 million), according to the statement.
Beijing-based CNOOC, which has shares traded in Hong Kong and New York, is China's largest offshore oil and gas producer by output. Its first-half net profit jumped nearly 38 percent year-on-year to a record 16.28 billion yuan, or about US$2 billion, buoyed by surging crude oil prices.
Fu said the merger will help strengthen CNOOC's fertilizer operations.
