Marubeni-Itochu Steel Inc said it would purchase Sooner Inc for USD 600 million. The Japan-based company would acquire the biggest pipe distributor for oil and gas firms in the US to get its share of the energy output in the US. Marubeni-Itochu is a joint venture firm between Itochu Corp and Marubeni Corp, the third and fifth biggest of the trading firms in Japan.
The acquisition would allow the Japan-based firm to access the clients as well as the five main supply bases of Sooner in the US. Sooner has the biggest client roster in the US that includes multinational firms and independent oil producers. Demand in the US currently comprises 40% or 5.5 million metric tons of the worldwide market for pipes in the energy industry. Sooner is owned by Oil States International Inc. Sooner posted sales of USD 1.8 billion in 2012.
Bloomberg reported that the slowdown in China and in emerging markets had forced Japanese trading houses to shift their oil investments to processing and transportation instead of extraction.
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