Anadarko agrees to start talks with Occidental Petroleum (US)

US-based oil and gas producer Anadarko Petroleum Corporation has agreed to resume negotiations with Occidental Petroleum in response to its acquisition proposal even though it previously entered into a definitive merger agreement with the global oil and gas company Chevron earlier in April 2019. Anadarko's board of directors estimates that the Occidental Proposal could reasonably be expected to result in a "superior proposal", as defined in the original merger agreement with Chevron.

In late April 2019, Occidental Petroleum submitted a superior proposal to acquire Anadarko for US$76 per share, which represents a premium of approximately 20% to the value of Anadarko’s pending transaction with Chevron. By doing so, Occidental Petroleum plans to enhance its oil and gas portfolio and in particular regarding its shale, deepwater and natural gas resource bases in the Permian basin and in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. This would be the start of an outright bidding war and Occidental Petroleum will be facing a supermajor four times its size.

Anadarko is involved in particular in the  Mozambique LNG (MLNG) export project on the Afungi peninsula, located close to the Offshore Area 1 of the deepwater Rovuma basin, which holds estimated reserves of 75 Tcf (2,120 bcm) of recoverable natural gas reserves, equivalent to around 12 Gboe. The project will include two liquefaction trains with a combined capacity of 12.88 Mt/year and the operation start is expected for 2022-2023. It is led by Anadarko (26.5%), Mitsui (20%), ONGC (16%), Mozambique's oil company ENH (15%), Bharat PetroResources (10%), PTTEP (8.5%) and Oil India Limited (4%).