Oil M&A Copy cats

Energy bankers are getting excited. ChevronTexaco’s $18bn acquisition of Unocal earlier this month has raised expectations that a slew of copycat deals will follow soon. US refiner Valero’s $7bn purchase of Premcor this week only seemed to confirm the trend. Both transactions were expensive – but not if a new «Golden Age» of high oil prices and margins has arrived, as some argue. Now that two companies have dared to poke their heads over the parapet, others will follow, so the thinking goes. It...