Petronas buys Canadian gas producer for $5.3bn

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak asked his Canadian counterpart Stephen Harper to reverse the initial rejection of Petroliam Nasional Bhd.’s $5.2-billion takeover of Progress Energy Resources Corp., correspondence between the two leaders shows.

TOKYO — Japan Petroleum Exploration (Japex) is taking a 10% stake in an integrated shale gas development and liquefied natural gas (LNG) project being planned by Malaysia’s Petronas in Canada’s British Columbia province. Japex said on Monday it is considering marketing its LNG offtake from the 12 million tonnes per year (mtpy) Pacific Northwest LNG project, worth 1.2 mtpy, in Japan, the world’s largest importer of LNG, which has been increasingly reliant on LNG since the Fukushima disaster in 2011 knocked out much of its nuclear power capacity.

“Canada is pulling ahead of the U.S. in a contest to be the first exporter of liquefied natural gas from the North American shale bonanza to Asia’s $150 billion LNG market” Bloomberg reports this week. As you likely know, the global liquefied natural gas (LNG) business is set to boom over the coming years. More natural gas demand from Europe and Asia is spurring an energy trend that could last for multiple decades. It’s a big moneymaker, too.

CALGARY — Pipeline firm AltaGas Ltd.  and a Japanese company have formed a partnership to explore shipping liquefied gas across the Pacific to Asian markets clamouring for new energy supplies. The Calgary-based company and Idemitsu Kosan Co. Ltd., a major petrochemical and refining firm, will each own half of the partnership, which envisions transporting both liquefied petroleum gas and liquefied natural gas overseas.

CALGARY — Malaysian state-owned energy firm Petronas has completed its $6-billion takeover of Progress Energy Resources Corp. The deal won Ottawa’s approval on Friday after having initially been rejected as not being of “net benefit” to Canada. Progress’ shares and debentures are expected to be delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange on Monday.

Malaysian state energy firm Petronas said Friday its net profit surged nearly 50 percent in the latest quarter on higher oil prices but warned the weak global economy could hit full-year profits.Profit at Malaysia's biggest company in the three months to June 30, the first quarter of the country's financial year, grew 48.6 percent from the same period a year earlier to 21.7 billion ringgit ($7.27 billion)."In a nutshell, the first quarter was quite a good run for Petronas," chief executive Shamsul Azhar Abbas told reporters at a press conference.

Malaysian state energy firm Petronas said Monday that the crude oil market's current fundamentals call for lower oil prices."Given the current state of market fundamentals and cost environment, I believe prices should remain within the range of $75 to $80 a barrel," Shamsul Azhar Abbas, the oil company's chief executive officer said at an industry gathering.Oil was mixed in Asian trade Monday ahead of a key OPEC meeting this week in Vienna, analysts said.