China's Sinopec Group agreed to buy Addax Petroleum Corp for about C$8.27 billion ($7.24 billion) in a move to secure the Swiss oil and gas explorer's high potential oil blocks in West Africa and Iraq's Taq Taq field.

The offer of C$52.80 per share from Sinopec International Petroleum Exploration and Production Corp, in a bidding contest with Korea National Oil Company (KNOC), is about 16 percent higher than Addax's Tuesday closing price.

There has been a spate of oil and gas merger activity recently, with Heritage Oil set to be acquired by Genel Energy International, a unit of Turkey's Cukurova Group the subject of takeover approaches from Dubai state-owned Emirates National Oil Company.

The Sinopec deal involves a break-up fee of C$300 million, Addax said in a statement.

Addax's London-listed shares, which have more than doubled in value over the last year, jumped almost 12 percent after the statement and were up 282 pence at 2,650 at 1142 GMT.

Sinopec Group is the parent company of China's Sinopec Corporation.-Reuters