Will PetroChina make a bid for BP?

Looks like the Chinese cavalry may be arriving soon.

Will PetroChina make a bid for BP?

Analysts at Asian-focued British investment bank Standard Chartered said a takeover by PetroChina, the world's biggest company by market valuation at $330bn, made economic sense and would transform it from a low-growth company into a global oil champion

Read more: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/markets/article.html?in_article_id=505982&in_page_id=3&expand=true#ixzz0qSSI9YXA

PetroChina Company Limited (simplified Chinese: 中国石油天然气股份有限公司, traditional Chinese: 中國石油天然氣股份有限公司) (SEHK: 0857, SSE: 601857, NYSE: PTR) is a Chinese oil company and is the listed arm of state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). It is China's biggest oil producer,<3> and is the world's most valuable company by market value as of March 30, 2010, topping the FT Global 500 list. Traded in Hong Kong and New York, the mainland enterprise announced its plans to issue stock in Shanghai in November 2007,<3> and following its debut on the Shanghai index, its market value tripled, making PetroChina the first company to reach a trillion dollar market capitalization.<4><5>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PetroChina

If anyone can be bothered to plough back through any posts I've made in the last month or so I had said they'd be a likely buyer albiet one you may not approve of. Contrary to the belief of some here I'm not a BP supporter. Its just that I could see that wishing BP harm may not be in your ultimate interest.

I wish for the damn holes to be plugged and those oil rigs to evaporate into thin air!!!

then your only real hope is that BP stays intact as is. You may not like that but I believe it to the only solution which will help you.

Just saying it is the only helpful solution doesn't pan out w/me.

would most likely need distribition of profits/reserves that have yet to materialise i.e. don't yet exist. Current funds probably wouldn't meet the situation. If you stop them from trading its the equivalent of cutting your nose to spite your face : the USA would then be left holding the bag on the balance.

That would really fix some of their oil acquisition problems.

By my calculations, the liability faced by BP over this spill will end up surpassing the total valuation of BP.

Buying BP buys that liability, too.

If PetroChina bought BP, PetroChina would probably go under.

and the current exposure of c. US$40 billion could be taken out of a years's profit almost unnoticed if they did take over BP.

By more than a factor of ten.

Count on it.

US$400 billion is somewhat in excess of their current tangible assets. : http://www.bp.com/extendedsectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9021605&contentId=7040949

Which makes the purchase of BP toxic in the extreme. And if PetroChina buys the liability along with the assets, they assume all liability. It may seem attractive on the surface, but once PetroChina considers what the liability will be they'll run away as fast as they can.

The US Taxpayer will eventually pick up more than half the bill for this spill.

and I am not sure BP itself would actually face any liability.

If any do, when this is said and done, I'll be very surprised.