Members of the House of Representatives and Senate added an amendment to an energy bill passing through Congress that would postpone the start of a formal US government review of the bid by China National Offshore Oil Corp.by over four months.

Unocal shareholders are set on August 10 to vote on a rival takeover offer from US oil major Chevron Corp. which enjoys the Unocal board's backing.

Should the Congress amendment go through, that would be likely to weigh heavily on the shareholders' minds as they decide whether to countenance a bid from China that has run into such fierce political opposition here.

The amendment tabled by Republican Congressman Richard Pombo now goes into a long-awaited US energy bill, which has to be voted by Friday if it is to pass before Congress breaks for its summer recess.

The chairman of the House energy committee, Joe Barton, said the measure requires the government's Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS) to spend 120 days analysing an overseas takeover bid of this type.

CFIUS would then need to wait an extra three weeks before filing its appraisal to US President George W. Bush of whether a Chinese takeover of Unocal would threaten national security interests, as many lawmakers argue.

"The assessment would examine the proposed deal's impact on US energy security and whether or not an American company would be allowed to make such an acquisition in the foreign company's host country," Barton said.

CNOOC on June 23 kicked up a political stink by bidding 18.5 billion dollars in cash to take control of Unocal, trumping an already agreed offer tabled by Chevron by 1.5 billion dollars.

Chevron then came back last week with a sweetened offer in cash and stock that valued Unocal at about 17.1 billion dollars.

While that was still less than the CNOOC bid, the board of the California-based Unocal recommended that shareholders accept the Chevron deal.

But in a regulatory filing Monday, the Unocal board said it likely would have acceded to CNOOC if the state-owned firm had raised its 67 dollars a share offer to take account of the risk of its bid being blocked by the White House.

The board said it was "willing to accept" the CNOOC proposal if it "were presented with a CNOOC proposal at a price that could be viewed as sufficient to compensate Unocal's stockholders for the additional risks".

Analysts have said that CNOOC would have to return with a bid that is at least 10 percent higher than Chevron's to take account of the political risk premium. Or it could bypass the Unocal board by launching a hostile takeover.

CNOOC, however, said last week that it was not planning to raise its bid. The company has also accused Chevron of underhand lobbying of Congress members in a campaign to whip up a political storm ahead of the August 10 vote.

"When Chevron's congressmen can attempt to create a legislative advantage for one party over another by subverting a congressionally mandated review process run by the president -- that's crossing the line," it said.

But the protests of CNOOC and its largest shareholder, the Chinese government, that the deal is purely business have failed to impress a large number of US lawmakers.

"It would be foolish, to say the least, to allow a foreign government, particularly one that remains committed to national one-party rule by the Communist Party, to own that much of such a strategic resource so vital to the US economy and the national defence," Senator Byron Dorgan said last week.

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