Chevron Corp. agreed to buy Anadarko Petroleum Corp. in a $33 billion deal that adds U.S. shale oil and African liquefied natural gas and puts it in the top ranks of the world’s largest energy companies.
The takeover, the industry’s sixth largest, puts Chevron neck-and-neck with the oil and gas production of Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell, both of which have dominated Big Oil over the past decade. Measured by cash flow, Chevron said it would have generated a combined $36.5 billion with Anadarko last year, slightly ahead of Exxon’s $36 billion.
“Chevron now joins the ranks of the ultramajors,” Wood Mackenzie Ltd. analyst Roy Martin said in a note.