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As Occidental Petroleum attempts to purchase Anadarko Petroleum, it is raising funds for the deal by selling Anadarko’s African natural gas assets to French oil major, Total SA. Neanda Salvaterra reports for The Wall Street Journal:
Total SA’s TOT +0.88% deal to buy Anadarko Petroleum Corp.’s APC +0.26% assets in Africa cements the French oil major’s position as the world’s second-largest provider of liquefied natural gas while pushing its business deeper into dangerous parts of the world.
Total said earlier this week that it agreed to buy Anadarko’s African assets for $8.8 billion in a transaction that would help Occidental Petroleum Corp. OXY +0.55% finance its takeover of the Texas-based oil producer. The deal was a key part of Occidental’s victoryover Chevron Corp. as the companies vied to buy Anadarko and its coveted U.S. shale holdings.
If the sale goes through, Total will inherit projects across Algeria, Ghana, Mozambique and South Africa containing 1.2 billion barrels of oil-equivalent of proved and probable reserves, of which 70% is natural gas. The assets help Total gain ground on Royal Dutch Shell RDS.A +1.04% PLC, the market leader in natural gas, and brings it closer to its stated goal of becoming a cleaner company with a portfolio that contains more natural gas than crude.
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