Dragon Oil has ditched its £492million takeover bid for Petroceltic. The move would have seen the company potentially benefit from Petroceltic assets in North Africa and Kurdistan. However, Dragon Oil said it no longer intends to make an offer on the back of “prevailing market conditions”.
This week heralded a significant moment in the oil and gas industry as Halliburton confirmed plans to takeover Baker Hughes in a $36.4billion deal. Energy Voice takes a look back at the previous ‘mega-mergers’ that have taken place in recent years. Triggered by the $110billion merger between BP and Amoco in 1998 just prior to the millennium and a number of years after, some of the biggest oil companies includinging Exxon and Mobil, Chevron and Texaco and Conoco and Phillips merged.
Halliburton is in talks to buy Baker Hughes Inc in a deal that would combine two of the largest and oldest names in the energy business as plunging oil prices send the industry into a downturn. By eliminating a competitor, Halliburton, already the world’s second-biggest provider of oilfield services, would gain market clout that would help insulate it from a sustained market decline. A combination of Halliburton with No. 3 Baker Hughes would be a little more than half the size of larger rival Schlumberger Ltd.