Dominion's Cove Point facility takes in imported liquified natural gas from BP in Great Britain, Shell in the Netherlands and Statoil in Norway. Statoil and Shell are investing heavily in the Marcellus formation. Last year, Warrendale-based East Resources sold its Marcellus interests to Royal Dutch Shell for $4.7 billion. Last month, Statoil, which has a $3.375 billion partnership agreement with the largest Marcellus leaseholder, Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Energy, said it might drill as many as 17,000 Marcellus wells over two decades. Other foreign companies with Marcellus Shale interests are Mitsui and Sumitomo from Japan, the BP group from Great Britain, Atinum from South Korea and Reliance Industries from India. The Chinese National Offshore Oil Corp. tried to break into the American energy market in 2005, when it bid $18.5 billion to take over Unocal.