Chinese Oil Giant Sinopec To Buy Marathon Oil’s Stake In Angolan Oil And Gas Field For $1.52B

China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (HKG:0386), or Sinopec, the world’s third-largest energy concern by revenue, is buying Marathon Oil Corp.’s (NYSE:MRO) stake in an oil and gas field in Angola for $1.52 billion.

This is Sinopec’s second buy in the field in Africa’s second-largest oil producing country. In 2011, it bought a 5 percent stake in the field from Courbevoie, France-based Total SA (NYSE:TOT). Sinopec says the field has a proven reserve of 533 million barrels of oil, according to the BBC. The deal will close after it is approved by the governments of China and Angola.

Energy-hungry China has long been on a global hunt for commodities to feed its industrial growth. It has also snatched up lucrative local operations worldwide. Earlier this year, it bought into shale deposits in the central U.S. in a $2.2 billion deal with Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy Corp. (NYSE:DVN).

PetroChina Company Limited (HKG:0857), another major Chinese energy company, recently expanded its investment in Canadian oil and gas reserves by buying up the remaining 40 percent of the Mackay River deposits for $673 million. It first entered the Canadian energy sector in 2009 with its $1.7 billion purchase of a 60 percent stake of Athabasca Oil Sands Corp.