CHINA is stepping up its race to secure access to global oil reserves with an audacious £4.8 billion bid for Addax Petroleum, a London-listed group with fields in Iraqi Kurdistan and Nigeria.

Sinopec, the Chinese state oil group, is understood to have tabled the indicative offer last week, trumping an earlier bid by the Korean National Oil Corporation.

Addax, which has one of only two operational fields in Kurdistan, has seen interest from would-be buyers increase with the completion of an oil-export pipeline from the region.

Sinopec’s approach is further evidence of China’s determination to use its cash reserves to seize control of the raw materials it needs to sustain its rapid economic growth.

In recent years it has struck a string of deals in Africa and Asia, but has not been so successful elsewhere. America blocked an $18.5 billion takeover of Unocal, an oil and gas group, four years ago, while last week, a combination of shareholder unrest and Australian nationalist sentiment scuppered plans for a Chinese group to take a large stake in the miner Rio Tinto.

Addax, which was set up in 1994, has hired RBC, the Canadian investment bank, to handle the auction.

A takeover would create the second billionaire from companies operating in Kurdistan in as many weeks. Addax boss Jean Claude Gandur owns 3.6% directly and controls an investment vehicle with an additional 35% stake.

Last week Tony Buckingham, the founder of Heritage Oil, announced a $6 billion merger with Turkey’s Genel Enerji. The tie-up will leave him with a 16% stake worth more than $1 billion in a new FTSE 100 group.

The deals are part of a land grab unfolding in Kurdistan. Until this month, an impasse between the regional government and Baghdad meant companies there had no market for their oil. The pipeline, to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, has increased the appeal of one of the world’s last unexplored oil provinces. The US Geological Survey estimates that it could hold up to 40 billion barrels.

BP CANDIDATE

Paul Anderson, an American energy executive, has emerged as one of two candidates to succeed Peter Sutherland as the £600,000-a-year BP chairman. Anderson, 64, is a non-executive director of BHP Billiton, the mining giant.

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