India and China, often fierce rivals in the race for global energy resources, have won a joint bid to buy Petro-Canada's 37 percent stake in Syrian oil fields for 573 million dollars, a top Indian official said Wednesday.
The acquisition marked the first time the two Asian giants have bid together for overseas reserves to feed their oil-hungry economies and opened the way for further collaboration.
India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), both state-owned, will have equal stakes in the Al Furat oil fields.
"This joint acquisition opens a wholly new set of opportunities for both the companies to collaborate on the oil and gas value chain," ONGC Chairman Subir Raha said in a statement. "The joint acquisition by ONGC and CNPC is a pace-setter for both companies, he said.
The acquisition followed the countries' announcement in April they would team up to bid for some energy projects as they seek to keep their economies booming although they said they would still compete for others. In all, eight firms were in the race for Petro-Canada's stake, The Press Trust of India said.
Calgary-based Petro-Canada said in a statement on its website that the deal was expected to close in early 2006, subject to Syrian government approval, and that the sale was in line with its strategy of disposing of "mature assets."
The company said "Syria remains an important part of our North Africa/Near East producing region." "It's an important milestone. We have been working on this for quite some time. Instead of competing wherever possible, we should work together," Indian Petroleum Secretary S.C. Tripathi told the Press Trust of India.
ONGC and CNPC, one of the world's leading integrated energy companies, are both stakeholders in an oilfield in Sudan although they did not bid for it jointly.
The announcement came shortly before Indian Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar's visit to Beijing slated for January.
Aiyar is expected to be in China for about a week starting January 10 to look for more collaboration between the two countries in the energy sector.
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