Financial Times: Dealmakers warm to chance of oil tie-ups

It is the season when CEOs and other executives set out their ambitions for the new year – and deal-hungry advisers suggest those ambitions include M&A.

One sector with the potential to excite M&A fantasists is oil & gas. Despite the overall slump in M&A, radical moves such as BP’s sale of its stake in its Russian joint venture TNK meant a near 20 per cent jump last year in aggregate deal values. Over a decade ago a merger wave swept through the sector, creating a breed of "supermajors". Intriguingly, some industry experts privately suggest that today the ingredients are there for another round of mega-deals in the sector.

Bid chat around a few majors has recently rekindled. BG Group has enviable finds from Australia to Brazil, but some analysts suggest that a stock price languishing after a shock warning on production in November has left it vulnerable. They muse that tie-ups with BP or Shell could make sense. MORE