AFX News Limited: CNOOC deal to buy stake in Australia Gorgon gas project scrapped, Chevron says: “China National Offshore Oil Corp's (CNOOC) preliminary agreement to buy a 12.5 pct stake in the Chevron-led Gorgon project in Australia has fallen through…”: “Chevron has a 50 pct stake in the Gorgon project with ExxonMobil and Shell each holding a 25 pct share.”: Wednesday 23 November 2005
BEIJING (AFX) - China National Offshore Oil Corp's (CNOOC) preliminary agreement to buy a 12.5 pct stake in the Chevron-led Gorgon project in Australia has fallen through on pricing and timing issues, a Chevron official said.
'We had an exclusivity agreement with CNOOC that expired earlier this year,'
Neil Theobald, Chevron's president of marketing for Gorgon said.
'We have both acknowledged that there have been major differences on price and schedule. We have agreed ... that in the future these agreements will not continue and we will discuss any gas supply with them as individual companies as we are doing with anyone else,' Theobald said.
CNOOC, the state-run oil company and parent of Hong Kong-listed CNOOC Ltd, signed a preliminary agreement to buy 30 bln aud of liquefied natural gas(LNG) from the Gorgon project in October 2003 along with a 12.5 pct stake in Australia's biggest untapped gas deposit.
Chevron has a 50 pct stake in the Gorgon project with ExxonMobil and Shell each holding a 25 pct share.
Theobald would not comment if Chevron had been approached by CNOOC to buy LNG under new conditions.
'What we can say is that China is very important to us and we are not turning our backs on China,' he said.
'We hope China will be a buyer in the future,' he added.
Earlier this week Chevron said in a statement that it had signed an agreement with Japan's Chubu Electric for the purchase of 1.5 mln metric tons per annum of Chevron's share of Gorgon LNG over 25 years commencing in 2010.
In October Chevron had announced it would sell 1.2 mln metric tons of LNG a year to Tokyo Gas, starting in 2010, and also a possible equity stake.
CNOOC had been relying on the Gorgon deal to supply its planned re-gas terminals on the eastern coast, including the one in the eastern province of Zhejiang.
Currently it is estimated that China will need to rely on imports of 30 mln tons of LNG annually by 2010 and 50 mln tons between 2015 and 2020 as it has limited domestic production of gas.
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