Rebirth of England.

“Yes, I know that natural gas may surpass oil in importance in the energy sector in the future, but we predict that oil and gas prices will fall in the next few years, so we will suspend our participation in the acquisition of Eni East Africa shares this time…”

Barron told Alliant Energy CEO Epelí Singleton on the phone:

"Not only the oil and gas blocks in East Africa, we will also suspend the acquisition of other oil and gas blocks within three years. The oil and gas resources we currently have are sufficient for us to exploit..."

"But PetroChina is very interested in Eni East Africa's shares..."

“Then tell them that we are willing to cooperate with them in oil and gas exploration and production, natural gas and LNG (liquefied natural gas) value chain, trade and logistics, refining and petrochemicals, but this acquisition of Eni East Africa shares does not fit in with our strategy…”

What he discussed with Epeli was the matter of CNPC contacting United Energy Group in the hope that the two sides would cooperate to jointly acquire Eni East Africa, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Italy's Eni Oil.

Previously, they had good cooperation with CNPC, including in the Kolo offshore oil field and the exploitation of oil and gas blocks in Southeast Asia by United Energy Group. Based on this, the other party made such a cooperation request.

Eni is Italy's largest oil group. Its wholly owned subsidiary Eni East Africa holds a 4% interest in the deepwater Area 70 block in Mozambique's Rovuma Basin, which has up to 85 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, exceeding Norway's existing total natural gas reserves.

However, Barron knew that in the next few years, global oil and gas prices would fall by more than half. In the original time and space, PetroChina purchased 28.57% of the shares and obtained 4% of the rights and interests in Area 20, which cost 42.1 billion US dollars...

Three years later, ExxonMobil purchased 35.7% of Eni East Africa from Eni Oil Company and acquired a 4% interest in Area 25 for only US$28 billion.

It can be said that buying shares of Eni East Africa now is not a wise decision.

Of course, it is impossible for Baron to directly persuade CNPC to abandon its decision to purchase shares of Eni East Africa - after all, it would be difficult to convince the other party by saying this now, and it is even more impossible for him to reveal his own judgment on future oil and gas prices.

Moreover, CNPC's choice to purchase overseas oil and gas resources is not entirely due to economic benefits, but also with the goal of reducing China's dependence on coal and meeting its energy needs.

In January this year, severe smog broke out in Yanjing, China. Throughout the month of January, there were 1 days with smog, and the air was relatively clean only on 25 days.

At that time, the heavy smog forced citizens indoors, caused flight disruptions, and affected the health of millions of people. During this period, Yanjing's air pollution index once reached 40 times the safety index.

In order to cope with this crisis, China has begun to govern the environment. In terms of energy, it will reduce its dependence on and use of coal and increase the proportion of clean energy such as natural gas.

Having said that, at this point in time, if Barron did not have some understanding of future oil and gas prices, it would be a reasonable decision to purchase Eni East Africa's natural gas block resources.

Since the reserves of the natural gas field in Area 4 in Mozambique were announced, many international oil giants have extended olive branches of cooperation to Eni Group, including ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Total and Gazprom in addition to CNPC. In the end, among these cooperation intentions, Eni Oil Company chose CNPC. The reason is that China and Mozambique have a friendly relationship. With the participation of CNPC, Eni Oil Company can minimize the political risks of this project...

Secondly, they hope to deepen cooperation with China Petroleum Corporation so that they can control the entire Asian natural gas product market in the future and earn huge profits.

Of course, if United Energy Group is willing to cooperate with CNPC to directly acquire Eni East Africa, Eni Oil Company will not refuse as long as it can offer a satisfactory price.

After all, as a state-owned enterprise in Italy, given the current economic situation in Italy, they are happy to make enough profit from this sale - in terms of oil and gas resources, Eni is not short of them. In addition to Mozambique in East Africa, as an old oil company, Eni also owns many oil and gas blocks in Africa. For example, their oil and gas blocks in Egypt have very rich reserves.

As Barron said, their decision is not only to give up the purchase of Eni East Africa, but also to suspend the purchase of other oil and gas blocks in the next two to three years.

However, as a partner with good cooperation with CNPC, although Barron could not directly persuade the other party to purchase shares of Eni East Africa, he did his best.

In addition to rejecting this cooperation, which was a subtle reminder to the other party, the investment company controlled by Barron has also been continuously shorting global oil and gas prices. With their large amount of funds joining the short-selling, well, at least now the decline in global oil and gas prices should be smaller than in the original time and space...

……

"Yes, the decline of print media has become inevitable in recent years. Whether in America or Britain, the proportion of young people reading newspapers has dropped significantly. Print media has been regarded as 'antiques'. Traditional print media are either trying their best to transform to the Internet, or they will eventually cease publication..."

Barron and Ivanta brought their children to the mansion on the top floor of the TP Building on Fifth Avenue to meet with her family. Unconsciously, they talked about the current situation of print media. Facing the sighing eyes of others, Barron said lightly:

"In the first half of last year, when the Financial Times announced that its digital subscribers surpassed its print edition for the first time, the media regarded it as an unusual exception. In fact, this anomaly will become the norm in the future. Newspapers under the independent newspaper industry have already begun to transform to the Internet, and their current online revenue has exceeded that of the print edition..."

“So the influence of Internet media will become greater and greater, surpassing that of paper media?”

Hearing his father's words, Ivanta smiled and said:

"Although there is still a slight gap now, with the internet having a greater influence on young people, this trend will begin to accelerate within four years as the generation accustomed to paper media becomes more and more receptive to the internet, especially mobile internet."

Seeing Jianguo's thoughtful look, Barron understood. It seemed that at this moment, he was already planning for what would happen four years later...