Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway insurance and investment company has sold its stake in PetroChina, it was confirmed last night.
Mr Buffett said, "we sold based on price," adding that "it was 100 per cent a decision based on valuation."
He also said he probably sold too soon because shares of PetroChina have risen since the sales began. Berkshire once owned more than 11 per cent of the Chinese oil company's publicly floated shares.
Critics have said PetroChina, through its government-owned parent China National Petroleum, is too closely linked to Sudan. The Sudanese government has been blamed for what the White House has called genocide in the Darfur region.
The shares were worth $3.31 billion at the end of 2006, well above the $488 million that Berkshire paid for them, according to Berkshire's latest annual report. Berkshire's selling first surfaced in July.
Shareholders at Berkshire's annual meeting in May overwhelmingly defeated a proposal calling on Berkshire to divest its PetroChina stake.
Mr Buffett had opposed the proposal, though he said conditions in Darfur were deplorable.