VANCOUVER, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- South Korean state-run Korean National Oil Corp. (KNOC) has signed a contract to buy Canadian oil and natural gas producer Harvest Energy for 4 billion Canadian dollars (3.74 billion U.S. dollars), Harvest Energy said in a statement Wednesday night.
This will be South Korea's largest overseas energy deal and the second major acquisition of a Canadian energy firm by an Asian company in the last few months.
Harvest Energy, a Calgary-based operator in Canada's energy industry, said KNOC will buy out all its issued and outstanding trust units for a total cash of approximately 1.8 billion Canadian dollars (1.68 billion U.S. dollars) plus the assumption of 2.3 billion Canadian dollars (2.15 billion U.S. dollars) of debt.
Young-won Kang, president of KNOC, hailed Harvest Energy as "a perfect fit" for KNOC's North American growth strategy.
"KNOC has ambitious plans for future growth and is committed to a long term investment strategy in Canada," he said in the Harvest Energy statement.
Harvest's board of directors has unanimously approved the arrangement, which is also subject to court and regulatory approval. The deal is expected to be closed before the end of 2009.
South Korea's Ministry of Knowledge Economy said in a statement Thursday that the purchase is expected to push up the country's self-sufficiency rate for oil and gas by 1.8 percentage points to 8.1 percent, exceeding its target of 7.4 percent for this year, Yonhap reported.
The ministry said the deal will likely accelerate KNOC's efforts to buy more overseas oil fields and oil firms to boost its assets.
Harvest Energy's upstream oil and gas production is weighted approximately 70 percent to crude oil and liquids and 30 percent to natural gas. It can produce 53,000 barrels of crude and gas per day.
BUENOS AIRES, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Argentine government announced a package of fiscal control measures on Thursday, including the use of electronic bills for sales of imported goods, second-hand car sales and hotel operations.
The announcement was made by the Director of the Argentine Federal Administration of Public Revenues (AFIP) Ricardo Echegaray, who was accompanied by Argentine Economy Minister Amado Boudou and Justice Minister Julio Alak.
The fiscal control includes the electronic control of car sales, sales of imported goods, and hotel operations as well as a new registration for entity owners, who currently do not pay tax on profits, to automatically renew their property value.
About 25,000 importers, 4,500 to 5,000 hotel operators and 32,000 NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) which did not pay tax on profits would be affected by the plan.
"The measures will contribute to speed up the procedures and give transparency to the operations and the progressive elimination of the importers who sometimes make the market dirty," Echegaray explained.
The announcement can be understood in the context of the global financial crisis, as Argentina's primary fiscal surplus plunged 85.5 percent in August compared to last August.
Special Report: Global Financial Crisis
