El Paso’s Shale Assets May Attract Reliance, Occidental, Statoil

Business Week reported that India’s Reliance Industries Ltd. (BOM:500325), Norway’s Statoil ASA (NYSE:STO) and Occidental Petroleum Corp. (NYSE:OXY) may be among bidders for El Paso Corp.’s oil and natural-gas unit.

As quoted in the market news:

The assets for sale, which include more than half a million acres of shale fields, may command a $7.3 billion price tag, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Deep-pocketed bidders from outside the U.S. are among the likely bidders, Dan Morrison, senior energy specialist at Global Hunter Securities LLC in Fort Worth, Texas, said in an interview yesterday. “This will put out one of the juiciest acquisition targets we’ve seen on the market for a long time,” Morrison said. “The foreign buyers can certainly pay a premium because they need the operating entity in addition to the assets.”

Reliance, which reported cash of 614.9 billion rupees ($12.6 billion) this month, formed a joint venture with Atlas Energy Inc. and bid this year to buy the company before it was sold to Chevron. Statoil has formed joint ventures with Chesapeake Energy Corp. to develop natural gas fields in Pennsylvania, and yesterday agreed to pay $4.4 billion in cash for Austin, Texas-based Brigham Exploration Co.

Click here to read the full Business Week report