Oxy Buys Interest in Canadian Oil Sands Assets

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Occidental Petroleum Corp. said Monday that it has agreed to buy an interest in Canadian oil sands for $491 million.


The Los Angeles-based oil company bought a 15 percent stake in the Joslyn Oil Sands Project in Alberta. Oxy bought it from Calgary-based Enerplus Resources Fund, which is North America’s largest conventional oil and natural gas income fund, Occidental said.


Occidental added that it expects to spend $2 billion to develop the reserves “over a number of years.” The transaction is expected to close by the end of the third quarter.


Joslyn, in Alberta’s Athabasca oil-sands region, is the largest oil reserve in the world next to Saudi Arabia. The Canadian government estimates the oil sands region contains 8 billion barrels of a tar-like petroleum product called bitumen, Occidental said. The project is 85 percent owned and operated by Paris-based oil company Total SA.


Shares in Occidental were up 2.1 percent to $87.43 in early trading Monday.

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