The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) on Thursday said it had completed the takeover of Canadian-registered PetroKazakhstan in a deal reportedly worth about 4.2 billion dollars, reported dpa. A Canadian judge on Wednesday ruled out a claim to an interest in PetroKazakhstan by Russia's Lukoil, giving CNPC "unconditional" leave to go ahead with the takeover, CNPC said. "The transaction has been completed," the official Xinhua news agency quoted CNPC officials as saying. PetroKazakhstan shareholders approved the deal last week after CNPC, China's largest oil producer, reportedly secured the endorsement of Kazakhstan's government by agreeing to sell one-third of PetroKazakhstan to state-owned KazMunaiGas. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Kazakh Prime Minister Danial Akhmetov gave their "strong support" for the deal between CNPC and KazMuniGas at a meeting in Moscow on Wednesday, the agency said. CNPC reportedly bid 55 dollars a share for PetroKazakhstan in August, some 21 per cent over market value and considerably higher than a reported rival bid by India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC). Ownership of the Calgary-based PetroKazakhstan, which controls about 12 per cent of the oil production in Kazakhstan, is part of a push by Chinese oil companies to secure worldwide energy resources in light of increasing demand in China, second only to the U.S. in oil consumption. Kazakhstan has access to as much as 3 per cent of the world's oil reserves, and the purchase fits in with CNPC's plans to build a pipeline for the transport of oil from Kazakhstan to China. The takeover will be made by CNPC International (CNPCI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of CNPC, ranked 10th among the world's top 50 oil companies with operations in more than 20 countries and annual production of 35 million tonnes of oil.
