Sempra Energy Agreed to Buy Peru Pipeline Stake
U.S.-based Sempra Energy (SRE) has agreed to buy a majority stake in a $5 billion natural gas pipeline project in Peru being sold by Brazilian engineering group Odebrecht SA, Finance Minister Alfredo Thorne said on Thursday.
Last week, a source with direct knowledge of the talks said negotiations had broken down after Sempra presented "significant changes to the purchase proposal."
"We are talking with the new company that is going to take leadership and informally they have told us an agreement between the buyers and the sellers was reached," Thorne told journalists at the Thomson Reuters Economic and Financial Forum.
"It is Sempra, which has been in talks with the outgoing company, Odebrecht," Thorne said, adding that an announcement was expected on Friday.
Representatives for Odebrecht in Peru did not immediately respond to a request for comment and Sempra in the United States declined to comment.
Sempra had offered a bid for the project with Techint Group.
(Reporting by Marco Aquino, Writing by Caroline Stauffer; Editing by Tom Brown)
