Chevron sells assets in BD to China firm

US oil giant Chevron has withdrawn its business from Bangladesh and sold Its all its assets to a Chinese firm named Himalaya Energy.
Himalaya Energy is owned by China ZhenHua Oil Co and CNIC Corporation Ltd. The financial deal has not been disclosed.
Chevron took over the Bangladesh assets from US company Unocal six-years ago.
Government sources said they were not aware of ZhenHua Oil's competing interest in the Chevron fields as Bangladesh is in the process of assessing the fields' reserves before placing a formal bid to buy the assets. Bangladesh has engaged global energy consultant Wood Mackenzie to do the job.
Chevron Corporation announced here on Monday that that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Chevron Global Ventures, Ltd., has entered into an agreement to sell the shares of its wholly-owned indirect subsidiaries operating in Bangladesh to a Chinese consortium named Himalaya Energy Co Ltd, said a Chevron press release.
On October, 2016, Bloomberg reported that the US oil producer, which has started to divest assets to counter an energy-price slump, is seeking some USD 2 billion from a sale of natural gas assets in Bangladesh.
Chevron, the second-largest United States-based oil producer, said in 2015 it planned to sell about $10 billion of assets by 2017 amid a prolonged slump in energy prices.
Chevron announced selling out its assets in different countries--including Bangladesh -- last year, due to oil price slump that led to losses. Since Chevron decided to sell its Bangladesh asset, Bangladesh government had made an offer that Chevron did not accept. Since then Chevron was negotiating with Chinese company ZhenHua Oil
State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid told the media that the Bangladesh government had offered to purchase all the natural gas assets of US energy giant Chevron in Bangladesh.
"We're interested in buying the assets. It'll be a big opportunity for us to havethe entire production of the three gas fields."
"I extended an offer to Chevron to buy the assets and was assured that its local office will talk to the headquarters on the interest shown by the Bangladesh government", Nasrul said.
Unfortunately, Chevron never discloses the price to Bangladesh and uses its official in the process to wind up its business from Bangladesh.
Chevron produces 1255 MMCF of gas from Bibiyana, 270 MMCF from Jalalabad and 50 MMCF from Moulavibazar fields per day. The three fields could have 3 to 4 trillion cubit feet (TCF) of gas, according to Petrobangla estimates. As per the PSC, the government gets 60 to 77 per cent of free gas from three gas fields. Chevron Bangladesh operates Block 12 (Bibiyana Field) and Blocks 13 and 14 (Jalalabad and Moulvibazar fields).
Chevron operates under two Production Sharing Contracts (PSC) under which it gets a maximum of $3 dollars for per thousand cubic meter of gas while Bangladesh gets a proportionally bigger chunk of gas as free share --making the deals are very profitable for the country.
Besides, Chevron also daily produces around 9000 tonnes of condensate, a liquid fuel by-product found in some gas fields. The remaining gas fields of the country produce around 1500 tonnes of condensate.
It here be mentioned that the energy companies have announced USD 41.9 billion of asset sales this year after crude prices fell to the lowest level in more than a decade, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Chevron, the largest US oil producer after Exxon Mobil Corp., is seeking buyers for Asian geothermal assets that could fetch as much as USD 3 billion. It is also holding talks to sell assets in Indonesia and Thailand.
The oil producer posted its third straight quarterly loss in July as a collapse in oil prices forced it to write down the value of oil and natural wells. The San Ramon, California-based company reported a loss of USD 1.47 billion, or 78 cents a share, compared with profits of USD 571 million, or 30 cents, a year earlier. Chevron has also invited second-round bids for its Asian geothermal assets from firms, including China General Nuclear Power Corp., people familiar with the matter said in September.