China's biggest off-shore oil industry player, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, has completed its acquisition of Canadian energy giant Nexen. The takeover, worth 15.1 billion US dollars, is the biggest overseas merger by a Chinese company. CNOOC said at a press conference held in Beijing, the takeover marks a cornerstone in the company's trans-national development strategy. Yin Hang reports from CNOOC's headquarters in Beijing.

Yin Hang, CNOOC Headquarters, Beijing, said:"The contentious 15.1 billion US dollars takeover of Canadian oil and gas giant Nexen by China's state-owned company CNOOC was closed Tuesday morning. It's closed more than seven years after China's largest-ever foreign takeover was announced."

Yang Hua, President of CNOOC, said at a press briefing on Tuesday that the two companies will work on post-merger integration in the next two to three months.

Yang Hua said:"From this moment, the ownership, earnings and risks, and its teams are under CNOOC's name. In the next couple of months, we will conduct intensive integration. We will complete the integration across areas including business, strategy, financing, accounting, auditing, sale and exploration. "

Nexen said in a statement that its shareholders would receive 27.5 US dollars in cash for each Nexen share.

Nexen reported a fourth-quarter loss of around 5.9 billion US dollars in 2012, compared with a profit of around 42 million US dollars a year earlier.

Yang Hua said:"The value of the trade-off is important. Nexen has a proved recoverable reserves of around 1 billion barrels. It also boasts 2 billion barrels of proven controlled reserves. And we're expecting to see a huge number of prospective reserves. So we believe the takeover, for our energy company, is worthwhile."

The acquisition gives CNOOC new offshore production in the North Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and off western Africa, as well as producing properties in the Middle East and Canada.

The takeover, orginally announced in July, won approval from Canadian regulators in December. Earlier this month, CNOOC overcame its last major hurdle after the deal was cleared by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, which had a say because of Nexen's exploration and production assets in the Gulf of Mexico.

Nexen said it would have a new board chaired by Li Fanrong, CEO of CNOOC. Kevin Reinhart would remain CEO of Nexen.

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