United Energy, the oil and gas company controlled by mainland tycoon Zhang Hongwei and backed by a US$5 billion credit facility from China Development Bank, plans to spend US$200 million this year to develop projects in Pakistan.
It aims to boost output at the projects it bought from global energy company BP last year by about 60 per cent in three years, and is seeking to buy more assets in North America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
The firm has been eyeing several targets in North America, all of which engage in conventional crude oil exploitation, according to chief financial officer Thomas Pang Pui-yin.
'We have met the would-be seller several times in one of the targets,' Pang said, without elaborating. 'We are also talking to some European firms that have projects in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.'
United is headed by Zhang (pictured), who owns about 72 per cent of the firm. Zhang's Orient Group is one of the mainland's largest private conglomerates whose businesses span transportation, construction, manufacturing and property.
United, formerly a garment maker and property developer, diversified into the oil sector in 2007 by buying Zhang's interest in an oil production project in Liaoning province.
In September last year, it completed a US$750 million acquisition of various oil and gas projects from BP, as part of the British firm's sale of assets to finance a US$20 billion fund to compensate victims of a major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.
