China’s CNOOC has struck a deal to sell its business in the United States to Britain’s Ineos, the two companies reported over the weekend. The deal is worth $2 billion and includes stakes in two deep-water fields in the Gulf of Mexico, per a Reuters report citing an unnamed source.
Ineos said that the acquisition would boost its global oil and gas production to over 90,000 barrels of oil equivalent daily. Neither of the companies involved named the price tag of the deal.
“This is a major step for us into the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, which builds on our growing energy business,” the British chemical company’s chairman said in comments on the news. “INEOS Energy is all about competing in the energy transition to provide reliable, affordable energy to meet world demand as the population continues to grow. And progressing carbon storage projects,” Brian Gilvary also said.
This is the third major recent investment by Ineos in U.S. oil and gas, following an LNG supply deal inked with Sempra Energy back in 2022 and its acquisition of Chesapeake Energy’s oil and gas assets in southern Texas a year later. The total value of these three recent deals exceeds $3 billion, the UK company said, and will provide Ineos with a new growth platform.
For CNOOC, the deal was motivated by market conditions although the company did not elaborate on the nature of those. According to an earlier Reuters report, the Chinese state giant had made plans to shrink its Western presence in anticipation of sanctions. There have been threats from Washington that Chinese companies would be punished for working with Russian oil exporters.
CNOOC has assets in the UK and Canada as well, and these could be put up for sale as well. Not yet, however, as the Chinese company just last month announced the start of production at a new project in Canada. Lake Northwest is expected to produce 8,200 barrels of crude daily at peak rates, to be reached by next year.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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