Business | Oil & Gas

Imperial Energy climbs on ONGC offer talk

Imperial Energy, a UK oil and natural-gas explorer developing deposits in Siberia, climbed to a seven-month high in London trading following a report that ONGC Videsh bid for the company.

  • Bloomberg
  • Published: 23:42 August 21, 2008
  • Gulf News

Mumbai: Imperial Energy, a UK oil and natural-gas explorer developing deposits in Siberia, climbed to a seven-month high in London trading following a report that ONGC Videsh bid for the company.

Imperial Energy rose as much as 88 pence, or 7.7 per cent, to 1,234 pence, which would be the highest close since January 15. The stock traded at 1,201 pence as of 11.45am local time, valuing the London-based company at £1.23 billion ($2.3 billion). ONGC Videsh, the overseas unit of India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), made a $2.5 billion "non-binding offer" for a controlling stake in Imperial Energy on June 24, the Hindustan Times reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the bid. ONGC chairman R.S. Sharma declined to comment on the report when contacted by telephone in New Delhi yesterday.

ONGC Videsh offered to pay 1,290 pence a share for Imperial Energy and may increase the bid to 1,500 pence if China Petroleum and Chemical Corp. makes a counter offer, Business Standard reported yesterday, citing an investment banker it didn't name.

The approach was approved by a committee of senior government officials. "This is speculation," said R.S. Pandey, the top bureaucrat in India's Oil Ministry. "We cannot comment."

ONGC, China Petroleum and Korea National Oil Corp are interested in acquiring Imperial Energy, Reuters said on August 13.

"A bid of 1,500 is around the upper range of our valuation," Artem Konchin, an oil and gas analyst at UniCredit Aton in Moscow, said by phone yesterday.

JPMorgan Chase analysts Andrey Gromadin and Nadia Kazakova said in a research note that the risk of a deal failing "has dropped considerably in our view."

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