Chinese oil company Cnooc Ltd. (CEO) has never shown interest in acquiring Repsol YPF SA's (REP) majority stake in Argentine oil company YPF, a Repsol press official said Wednesday.

Earlier Wednesday, Cnooc Ltd. (CEO) Chairman Fu Chengyu said his company has no intention to bid for YPF.

Repsol earlier in August had said the company "has received expressions of interest on YPF, but no firm bid," but didn't specify who had expressed interest.

A report on Dow Jones Newswires on August 10, citing two people close to the matter, said China National Petroleum Corp. and Cnooc Ltd. proposed paying at least $17 billion for Repsol's stake in YPF.

"Cnooc was never among the companies that have expressed interest," the Repsol press official said Wednesday.

The official added that Repsol still hasn't received any firm offer for the YPF stake. The company has long said it wants to reduce its 84% stake in YPF.

Cnooc, however, several months ago had expressed interest to form a joint-venture with Repsol for some of its international upstream businesses.

At 1200 GMT, Repsol shares were down EUR0.41, or 2.31%, at EUR17.31, while Madrid's IBEX-35 index was down 0.8%.

Company Web site: www.repsol.com

-By Bernd Radowitz, Dow Jones Newswires, +34-91-395-8125, djmadrid@dowjones.com;

(Yvonne Lee in Hong Kong contributed to this report)