Nippon Oil, Nippon Mining merger official

Nippon Oil Corp. and Nippon Mining Holdings Inc. have signed an official agreement for their merger, on which they reached a basic understanding last December. The holding company will serve as an umbrella for three subsidiaries that will respectively handle domestic oil refineries and sales, oil and gas field development, and metal operations. The companies originally planned to merge this month, but the approval process with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has taken longer than expected. Based on the two companies’ fiscal 2008 domestic gasoline sales, the merged entity will control a leading 33% or so of the Japanese market, far ahead of the roughly 17% held by ExxonMobil YK, the Japanese unit of ExxonMobil Corp. (October 30, 2009)