Canadian Upstream M&A Reaches C$1.7 Billion In September

Thanks primarily to a pair of sizeable agreements involving Cenovus Energy Inc., Canada’s upstream M&A sector saw a total of C$1.7 billion in new deals agreed in September.


Source: CanOils M&A Review, September 2017

Summaries of the two Cenovus deals can be found within CanOils’s latest M&A review, which can be downloaded free here.

Unfortunately, this latest bout of market activity could not mask the continued low M&A activity within the Canadian E&P sector. September recorded just six new deals, the lowest number agreed in any month this year. September was, in fact, only the fourth full calendar month since the start of 2014 where six or fewer new upstream deals were announced. Last month we also showed that the months of January, February, May and August in 2017 ranked within the bottom 10 months since the beginning of 2014 in terms of deal value.

So, while rising commodity prices have been improving Canadian oil and gas company performance metrics over the past nine months, it is safe to conclude that this has not yet translated into any meaningful uptick in Canada’s upstream M&A activity.

This month’s C$1.5 billion of upstream deals involving Cenovus reflect the company’s intent to balance its books after it purchased ConocoPhillips’s interest in the Foster Creek Christina Lake Partnership along with Deep Basin assets in May for C$17.7 billion. The company still has two further packages available for sale.

September also saw Pengrowth Energy Corporation’s fifth separate asset sale since December last year, along with other deals involving RMP Energy Inc. and Manitok Energy Inc. Over 9,600 boe per day was also put up for sale in various public listings, the bulk of which was associated to two separate receivership processes.

Download the CanOils M&A Review for September 2017 here.

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  • M&A

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