????是否有人愿意收購全球最大公司之一的英國石油公司（BP）？隨著英國石油公司與美國政府就深水地平線（Deepwater Horizon）鉆井平臺漏油事故達成和解，業(yè)內(nèi)一些人開始將其視為收購的新目標。盡管這類超大型公司合并會讓華爾街銀行家們垂涎，但是即便賣掉數(shù)十億美元資產(chǎn)后，英國石油公司規(guī)模和風險仍然過大。當前石油領(lǐng)域主要發(fā)展方向還是專業(yè)化。英國石油公司只有拆分成若干可控的部分，其他石油巨擎才有可能愿意掏腰包。

????差不多每兩年，這家是非不斷的石油巨頭就會成為坊間熱議的收購熱門。上一次是2011年1月，風傳殼牌石油公司（Shell）意欲上演跨海“德比”，并購英國石油公司，打造出能與最大上市能源公司?？松梨诠荆‥xxonMobil）抗衡的新公司。再往前推兩年，?？松梨诠驹鴮τ凸拘佬老驑s的精煉業(yè)務產(chǎn)生興趣。再往前兩年，英國石油公司曾與殼牌石油公司商談合并事宜。

????時光荏苒，世事輪回，上周不愿意透露姓名的消息人士（也可能是捕風捉影的英國銀行家）告訴彭博新聞社（told Bloomberg News），英國石油可能又將成為被收購對象。這一次，英國石油公司贏得如此關(guān)注的原因何在？隨著公司規(guī)模瘦身，及與美國和俄羅斯政府間的糾葛逐一化解，英國石油公司低迷的市值變得無別誘人。英國石油公司最近宣布與美國司法部達成和解，就墨西哥灣大面積漏油事故支付45億美元罰款了結(jié)刑事指控。上個月，歷經(jīng)多年政府打壓和寡頭折騰之后，英國石油公司宣布出售其俄羅斯合資公司秋明英國石油公司（TNK-BP）股份，換取國有的俄羅斯石油公司（Rosneft）20%的股份和123億美元的現(xiàn)金。

????并非所有人都看好英國石油的收購前景。“盡管事事皆有可能，但是英國石油公司規(guī)模過大，無法并購，”O(jiān)ppenheimer的能源股票分析師法德爾·蓋特指出。

????在休斯頓，能源領(lǐng)域的銀行家和石油公司高管們對英國石油已經(jīng)或?qū)⒁蔀楸皇召弻ο蟮膫髀勦椭员?。至于彭博社消息中被點名為潛在并購方之一的?？松梨诠?，公司內(nèi)部人士對《財富》雜志（Fortune）透露，公司近來從未進行過任何有關(guān)英國石油公司的討論。

????英國石油公司與其他大石油公司合并，這個主意是不是有些瘋狂？一直到現(xiàn)在，“越大越好”仍然是石油界普遍接受的理念。上世紀90年代，隨著超大型石油公司的誕生，這個理念發(fā)展到了極致。但真正推動90年代末石油界并購潮的還是絕望，當年油價一度跌至每桶10美元。

????近期數(shù)月，油價略顯疲軟，一直徘徊在90美元上下，但仍然遠高于上世紀90年代末的水平。以目前的油價，石油公司完全可以在穩(wěn)穩(wěn)當當?shù)厝蚋鞯卮蚓捎?，財源廣進。

????It's one of the largest companies in the world. Could it really be a takeover target?

????Some in the industry see BP as fresh deal meat following the company's long-awaited settlement with U.S. authorities in connection with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. But while such a mega-merger may make Wall Street bankers salivate, even after selling off billions of dollars in assets, BP simply remains too big and too risky to buy. Specialization is the name of the game these days in the oil patch. BP would need to break up into more manageable pieces before any oil major would consider opening its wallet.

????It seems like every two years or so there is talk that BP, arguably the most battered of the world's "Supermajor" oil companies, is the focus of deal chatter. The last time this happened was back in January of 2011, when Shell was rumored to be interested in buying up its cross-channel and cross-town rival, creating a company with enough heft to take on the likes of the world's largest publicly-traded energy company, ExxonMobil. Two years before that, it was ExxonMobil looking to buy up BP's fledgling refining business. And two years before that it was talk of a possible merger-of-equals with Shell.

????Like clockwork, unnamed sources (or chatty British bankers?),?told Bloomberg News?last week that BP may yet again be a takeover target. The reason BP is such a tasty morsel now? Its beat-up valuation just looks too irresistible now that the company has slimmed down and settled its differences with the U.S. and Russian governments.

????In the U.S., BP recently announced a?$4.5 billion criminal settlement?with the Justice Department concerning its negligence in the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. And in Russia last month, after years of strong-arming by the government and corrupt Russian oligarchs, BP agreed to sell its turbulent Russian partnership, TNK-BP, for a 20% stake in Rosneft, the state-owned Russian oil company, and $12.3 billion in cash.

????But not everyone is buying the takeover talk. "Although anything is possible, BP is too big to merge," says Fadel Gheit, an energy equity analyst at Oppenheimer.

????Down in Houston, energy bankers and oil executives uniformly shuttered at the notion that BP is now, or could be soon, the subject of a takeover. Insiders at ExxonMobil, one of the companies that Bloomberg cited as a possible merger partner, told Fortune that there has been zero talk of doing any kind of deal with BP recently.

????But is it such a crazy idea to imagine BP one day merging with one of its Big Oil brothers? Up until recently, it was widely accepted that being bigger was the key to being a better oil company. That view was taken to its logical extreme in the late 1990s when the "Supermajor" oil company was born. But the?impetus for the mergers?of the late 1990s was sheer desperation, as oil prices had collapsed to as low as $10 a barrel.

????Today, oil prices, while soft in recent months at around $90 a barrel, are nowhere near the levels seen in the late 1990s. At current prices, oil companies can comfortably make a fat profit drilling pretty much anywhere on earth.