China's Sinopec To Takeover UK's Imperial Energy

China's Sinopec is likely to takover the London-based oil and gas explorer Imperial Energy, which could derail takeover talks between that group and India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.

Sinopec's move could scupper a 12.90-pound a share, or a 1.3 billion pound approach from ONGC.

The company has been the subject of approaches in the past.

Imperial last month announced it was in talks regarding a possible offer and although it did not name the potential bidder. It is known that ONGC was behind the bid.

Imperial, founded by chairman Peter Levine in 2004, has built up a number of assets across Russia and other countries in the former Soviet Union. It produced about 10,000 barrels of oil a day in December last year and plans to raise this to 80,000 b/d by the end of 2011.