SINGAPORE (Standard&Poor's) April 23, 2014--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that its corporate credit rating on PTT Exploration and Production Public Co. Ltd. (PTTEP; BBB+/Stable/--; axA+/--) is not affected by the company's agreement to acquire Hess Corp.'s (BBB/Stable/--) stakes in energy projects in Thailand. The approximately US$1.0 billion acquisition, which PTTEP intends to fund using its existing cash, is in line with PTTEP's investment strategy to achieve production of 600,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2020 through growth of existing projects and acquisition of producing or near-producing assets. As such, our base-case assumptions remain broadly unchanged. We still expect the company to maintain its debt-to-EBITDA ratio at 0.6x-1.0x over the next two years. We also
