Chinese firm to buy Texas oil fields

A Chinese development firm is buying oil fields in western Texas for more than $1 billion.

Yantai Xinchao Industry Co. said in a Saturday regulatory filing that it planned to buy assets from Tall City Exploration and Plymouth Petroleum, The Wall Street Journal reported.

{mosads}The filing didn’t give much information about the fields, except that they are in Howard and Borden counties and part of the Permian Basin, long one of the most productive oil regions in the country.

The deal shows how strong interest has become among Chinese firms in the United States’s energy sector. Companies in China had shown recent interest in American oil fields, and this deal seems to be the first to move forward, the Journal said.

The plunge in worldwide oil prices over the last year and a half has also made such deals especially attractive to cash-rich Chinese companies betting that prices will rise.

Chinese investment in sensitive oil areas is restricted, but Yantai Xinchao said it has already received government permission for the acquisition, according to the Journal.