Petro-Canada, the third-largest oil company in Canada, plans to sell interests in five oil-sands properties in Alberta to focus development efforts on deposits in which it has larger stakes.
The Chard, Stony Mountain, Liege, Thornbury and Ipiatik properties contain an estimated 1.7 billion barrels of bitumen reserves, Calgary-based Petro-Canada said today in a statement. The company's stakes in the properties in northeastern Alberta range from 10 percent to 36 percent, spokesman Chris Dawson said.
``Petro-Canada is choosing to focus on its most-attractive assets'' with 100 percent ownership or a majority stake, Dawson said. ``With our core assets we have enough development work for several years, and we wouldn't get to these assets for some time.''
The sale will reduce Petro-Canada's estimated oil-sands reserves by about 17 percent to about 8 billion barrels, he said. Petro-Canada owns 55 percent of the Fort Hill oil-sands development, expected to produce as much as 170,000 barrels of extra-heavy oil a day by 2011.
London-based Harrison Lovegrove & Co. has been hired to advise on the sale, Petro-Canada said.
``We're looking for a cash transaction but we will entertain other offers,'' said Dawson of the planned sale, which the company expects to complete by mid-2007.
The properties contain reserves buried too deep for surface mining and must be extracted with wells, he said.
Oil-Sands Interest
Producer interest in Alberta's tar-like oil sands surged after growing oil demand and political tension in the Middle East sent futures prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange to a record $78.40 a barrel in July.
Spending of as much as C$125 billion by Petro-Canada, Suncor Energy Inc. and others will almost triple the region's output to 3 million barrels a day by 2015, Canadian regulators have said.
Shares of Petro-Canada rose 48 cents to C$51.19 at 1:30 p.m. on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The stock has gained 9.7 percent this year.
Imperial Oil Ltd., about 70 percent owned by Exxon Mobil Corp., is Canada's largest oil company by 2005 sales, followed by EnCana Corp.
