Nexen Inc. (NXY) said early Tuesday that the Committee on
Foreign Investment in the U.S. has approved Cnooc Ltd.'s (CEO)
$15.1 billion acquisition of Nexen, clearing the last significant
hurdle in the deal--China's biggest overseas acquisition to
date.
The Canadian government approved the deal in December, after an
extensive review of its own foreign investment rules and its policy
toward state-owned enterprises in particular. Britain also green
lighted the deal. U.S. and British authorities needed to sign off
because Nexen controlled significant assets in the Gulf of Mexico
and the North Sea.
Calgary, Alberta-based Nexen said it expects Cnooc to close the
acquisition the week of Feb. 25.
The U.S. approval came after the companies agreed to resubmit
their application in front of the committee, a multi-agency group
in Washington that vets significant foreign investment in the U.S.
The approval marks a significant milestone for Cnooc, which had
pushed hard into the U.S. energy patch in the middle of the last
decade, bidding for Unocal Corp.
That deal ultimately died amid political opposition in the U.S.,
and Chevron Corp. (CVX) eventually bought Unocal.
Cnooc started up a new push into North America in recent years,
but focused on Canadian assets. In 2011, it agreed to buy bankrupt
Canadian producer OPTI Canada Inc., a rare move by a Chinese state
owned entity to go after 100% of a North American energy company.
Then last year, it went a step further, offering to buy the much
larger and much more financially healthy Nexen, an oil-sands
operator with petroleum assets around the world, including in the
strategic--and sometimes politically sensitive--Gulf of Mexico.
Write to Carolyn King at carolyn.m.king@dowjones.com
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