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China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) has announced that it has secured a US$30 billion loan that it will use to fund foreign acquisitions.
Business news specialist Bloomberg reported that the five-year low-interest loan was granted by the state-run China Development Bank.
“This reflects China’s intensifying desire to beef up long-term national energy security,” Gordon Kwan, the head of regional energy research at Mirae Asset Securities in Hong Kong is reported by Bloomberg as saying.
Details of how the money will be spent will not be disclosed, but ArabianOilandGas.com reported in July that CNPC was on the verge of making a US$14.5 billion bid for a 75% stake in YPF, the Argentinean arm of Spanish energy giant Repsol.
CNPC is also looking to increase its stake in the super giant Rumaila oilfield in Iraq as well as make a series of bids for Iraq’s second round of auctions to win development contracts for the country’s oil and gas fields.