Reuters: China slows overseas unconventional energy acquisitions

China's energy giants are slowing their purchases of overseas unconventional oil and gas assets following two years of aggressive investment, leaving the door open for Asian rivals to step up their game in regions including the Americas.

Sinopec Group, PetroChina and CNOOC Ltd have been leading Asia's oil and gas acquisitions, with a bulk of the deals involving the transferring of Western technology on unconventional energy to China, believed to hold the world's biggest deposits of gas in shale rock.

As they focus on learning the expertise and gathering experience in running those projects -- most of which are early-stage operations requiring massive capital spending -- Chinese purchases of overseas energy assets fell to $16.3 billion last year from $23.4 billion in 2010. Deals totaled $5.1 billion so far this year, according to Thomson Reuters data. MORE