"We have never heard any internal talk about the case," a spokesperson for the company told Xinhua.
Last week the Wall Street Journal reported that the Chinese government was considering mergers between the top four Chinese state energy companies, Sinopec, CNPC, CNOOC and Sinochem in order to increase their competitiveness on the global market.
Earlier market reforms, which spurred competition on the domestic market, led to the firms increasingly encroaching on each others' geographic or technological segment of the industry. A Chinese government official told the paper that the energy companies were consequently "fighting among each other," leading to waste and inefficiency.
An industry insider told Xinhua on Thursday that the government is currently in the process of formulating its reforms to the energy industry, which "will be released as early as the first half of this year and will have significant impact on the current oil and gas system."
Reform of the energy sector comprises a key part of President Xi Jinping's drive "to realize the great renewal of the Chinese nation," which he declared shortly after being elected Communist Party General Secretary in November 2012, and are part of wider efforts to reform state-owned enterprise and stamp out corruption.
Wu Yibing, director for China of Singaporean investment firm Temasek, wrote in last month's China Brief that "the energy sector is still at the top of Beijing’s agenda for overseas investment and acquisition," and anticipates that President Xi's new round of reforms "will dramatically change the preferences and performance of SOEs’ overseas economic expansion."
