The head of Chinese oil and gas producer CNOOC Ltd told an audience of executives in Houston on Tuesday that he hoped to overcome "misunderstandings" about the purpose of acquisitions made abroad by Chinese oil companies. A week after closing its $15 billion takeover of Canada's Nexen, CNOOC Chief Executive Li Fanrong said China - the world's top oil importer as of December - mainly wanted to increase its contribution to the supply side of the oil market.In the West suspicion about sales of major assets to Chinese companies remains because of Beijing's controlling influence in the nation's corporate sector as well as anti-China sentiment among some lawmakers.Canada approved the Nexen takeover even though some members of the governing Conservative Party had misgivings about it, while U.S. approvals dragged on as legislators examined whether the deal would threaten U.S. national security."We are supposedly doing this because we want to haul every barrel of oil back to China, or have other agendas rather than commercial reasons," Li said. "Everyone with knowledge of the global market system can easily figure out that is not true, simply because this notion does not make any commercial sense."
CNOOC Limited is an investment holding company. The Company, along with its subsidiaries, is a producer of offshore crude oil and natural gas and an independent oil and gas exploration and production company. Shares of CEO fell by 0.2% or $-0.38/share to $188.96. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $171.58 and as high as $226.77. On average, 78318 shares of CEO exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 74669.
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