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Unocal acquisition race warms up as Chevron receives S.E.C. approval
New York: Chevron has said that the Securities and Exchange Commission had cleared its $16.4 billion offer for Unocal, lifting the last regulatory hurdle for the proposed acquisition. But a deal for Chevron is still some distance away with a rival offer from Chinese oil major, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (Cnooc), acting as a spanner in the works.

The regulatory go-ahead opened the way for a vote by Unocal's shareholders on the Chevron offer. Unocal, an independent oil company based in El Segundo, Calif., announced yesterday that the vote would be taken on Aug. 10. Chevron hopes that by putting the issue to a vote fairly quickly, it can thwart Cnooc's $18.5 billion bid.

But even as Chevron was pressing ahead, Cnooc and Unocal managers met in New York to discuss the unsolicited bid that the Chinese company made. On Monday, Cnooc tried to defuse some of the political opposition by requesting that its offer be quickly reviewed by the Bush administration. The Treasury Department's Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States typically considers acquisitions by foreign companies, examining whether they pose a risk to national security.
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