Kuwait pulls Ithaca Energy bid

Kuwait's national oil company has walked away from takeover talks with North Sea-focused oil and gas explorer Ithaca Energy, a Kuwaiti daily reported on Sunday. Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration, the international arm of Kuwait Petroleum Corp. (KPC), was not immediately for comment on the report in al-Seyassah newspaper which cited high-level unnamed sources in KPC. "Kuwait closed the door to negotiation completely," the newspaper quoted a source as saying. London's Sunday Times reported in March that the Kuwaiti group was in advanced takeover talks with the company, which is also listed in London. Ithaca said in March that it had received unsolicited interest from several unnamed parties in a deal estimated to be worth US$880m.