India, China team up to buy oil
16 August 2006
India's state-owned Oil & Natural Gas Corp and China's Sinopec Group have teamed up to buy half of Omimex de Colombia, a subsidiary of US-based Omimex Resources. Sinopec officials did not comment on the deal, the Wall Street Journal reported, but India's Oil Minister Murli Deora said the joint deal "is a better way to buy oil properties - unnecessary competition is not good." State-owned companies from the two countries have already undertaken at least one joint deal, a stake in a Syrian oil field bought from a Canadian firm. In January, the two countries signed an agreement to cooperate in the energy sector.
