Mainland companies including China National Petroleum Corp have expressed interest in Repsol YPF, the fifth-largest oil and gas company in the world, which is considering restarting the sale of its Latin American assets that could be valued at US$10 billion, sources said.
CNPC and its listed subsidiary PetroChina operate equal joint venture CNPC Exploration for overseas acquisitions. Parent CNPC also makes acquisitions on its own.
'I can't comment on whether there has or hasn't been any primary contact on this,' said PetroChina spokesman Mao Zefen. CNPC could not be reached for comment, and Repsol YPF declined to comment.
Repsol scrapped a larger sale last year that included assets worth about US$20 billion. CNPC Exploration tried twice to arrange a sale - once on its own and again with a pair of hedge funds, but failed on both occasions.
'It's going to be a different structure than last year and will be more complicated,' said a source.
Another source said the asset sale could be valued at about US$10 billion. 'It depends on what they sell, but it looks like refineries and upstream assets,' the source said.
Some analysts thought PetroChina, if it went ahead and tried to buy a large portfolio of assets, may be taking on too much at one time.