The proposal to acquire joint control of Angolan company Angola LNG by United Kingdom group BP, US group Chevron Global Energy, Italy’s ENI, France’s Total and Angolan oil company Sociedade Nacional de Combustíveis de Angola (Sonangol) has been approved by the European Commission.

After analysing the deal under the terms of the European Union Merger Regulations, the Commission decided that the deal did not raise any competition issues due to the small market share of the partnership, the presence of some credible competitors in the natural gas market and the unchanged capacity of competing companies for regasification.

The Angola LNG partnership will transform natural gas, collected from the oil production process and carried along gas pipelines to a land-based liquefaction unit, into liquid natural gas (LNG), and will later be sold to customers across the world to later be converted back into gas (regasification).

In the statement issued Wednesday in Brussels, the Commission, despite noting that some of the Angola LNG partners overlapped in their business interests, concluded that the transaction would not prevent effective competition in the European Economic Area either on the whole or in part.

The BP, Chevron, ENI, and Total groups are global operators in terms of exploration, production, refining, and sale of oil and natural gas whilst state company Sonangol is the only concessionaire for oil and gas exploration in Angola.

Angola LNG is a consortium of Sonangol, which owns 22.8 percent of the project and the Angolan subsidiaries of Chevron (36.4 percent), Total (13.6 percent), BP (13.6 percent) and ENI (13.6 percent). (macauhub)