2009-08-04-2009-07-01

Offer to acquire company with assets in West Africa, Middle East, producing 134,000 BO/d.

The Chinese state oil company Sinopec is in negotiations to acquire Switzerland-based oil company Addax Petroleum (Toronto: AXC; London: AXC), according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The Korean National Oil Co. (KNoc) is also vying to buy the company. Addax acknowledged that it has held preliminary discussions with third parties with regard to an acquisition or business combination, but declined to discuss further. The company, with production in West Africa and the Middle East, has a market value of some US$6.25 billion. It announced in early June that it had begun exporting oil from the Taq Taq license area of the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Addax is one of the largest independent oil producers in West Africa and had total production of 134,000 barrels of oil per day in first-quarter 2009.