Pressure Builds Over Chinese Bid for Unocal

China’s CNOOC Ltd. moved Friday to jump-start a U.S. government review of its $18.5-billion bid for Unocal Corp., while the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee pledged to intensify the scrutiny with a hearing this month.

CNOOC, which is 70%-owned by state-controlled China National Offshore Oil Corp., said it filed detailed paperwork with a foreign investment review committee headed by Treasury Secretary John W. Snow. The company favors the inquiry by the interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, believing it will prove that its offer to buy Unocal is a business deal and poses no security concern for the U.S.

“Once all the facts are known and the commercial purpose and terms of the transaction are fully understood ... many doubts and questions will be favorably resolved,” Yang Hua, CNOOC’s chief financial officer, said in a statement.

CNOOC made its all-cash $67-a-share offer for Unocal last week, more than two months after Unocal agreed to be bought by San Ramon, Calif.-based Chevron Corp. in a stock-and-cash deal. The value of Chevron’s bid, which changes along with the bidder’s stock price, was worth an estimated $60.25 a share, or $16.5 billion on Friday.

Legislators spent much of Thursday airing their concerns about the proposed purchase of Unocal, a deal many said could compromise the nation’s security and economy by transferring oil assets to a company under Chinese government control.

The House approved two measures aimed at hindering the transaction: an appropriations bill amendment that would prohibit the Treasury Department from spending any federal funds to approve the CNOOC offer and a resolution expressing security concerns and urging President Bush to review the issue.

Calling CNOOC “a front company for the Communist Chinese government,” House Energy Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-Texas) said he would convene a hearing on the proposed deal after Congress returns July 11 from its holiday recess.

Shareholders of El Segundo-based Unocal are set to vote on the Chevron proposal Aug. 10.

“We’re not prejudging the outcome of the [Unocal shareholder] vote,” said Chevron spokesman Donald Campbell, “but we have been holding integration talks on several fronts to see how the two companies would fit together.”