The Jakarta Post --- Chinese companies have made rival bids for Southeast Asia’s biggest oil drilling company after India’s Aban Loyd Chilles Offshore Ltd. offered to buy a stake in PT Apexindo Pratama Duta valued at about US$170 million.
Aban said recently it is in talks for a 32 percent stake in Apexindo from PT Medco Energi Internasional, Indonesia’s largest publicly traded oil company, which controls the oil driller.
China National Offshore Oil Corp. and China Oilfield Services Ltd. have also joined a bid for Apexindo, Bisnis Indonesia reported Wednesday, citing an official it didn’t name.
“Aban Loyd came to us and as the news spread, some Chinese companies then told us, “Hey we want to buy it too,” Rashid Mangunkusumo, Medco’s chief growth officer, said in an interview in Jakarta, without naming the Chinese bidders.
“We won’t be rushing to sell Apexindo. It’s very profitable unit for us. And if we sell it, we want the highest price.”
Indian and Chinese companies are competing to acquire overseas oil exploration assets to meet rising demand at home as crude oil prices surge.
China and India consume 11 percent from the world’s oil, up from 9 percent in 2000, according to BP Plc data. Apexindo, which is partly owned by SeaDrill Ltd., an oil-rig owner controlled by Norwegian billionaire John Fredriksen, swung to a profit in the first half of the year.
Liu Junshan, a Beijing-based spokesman for China National Offshore Oil Corp., and Helen Wu, a spokeswoman for China Oilfield Services Ltd., both said they had no knowledge of their companies bidding for Apexindo.
Apexindo had net income of Rp 191.5 billion in the first six months, from a loss of Rp 72.5 billion a year earlier. Sales climbed 29 percent to Rp 635.3 billion. The company last posted an annual profit in 2003.
