On January 31, 2017, Statoil Canada Ltd. completed the sale of its Alberta oil sands assets to Athabasca Oil Corporation for total consideration of $582 million. The consideration consisted of approximately $435 million in cash, 100 million common shares and contingent value payments triggered at oil prices above US$65/bbl WTI.
The acquired assets included the producing Leismer thermal oil project, the undeveloped Corner project and strategic regional infrastructure. The acquisition establishes Athabasca as an intermediate oil weighted growth company and the low decline production at Leismer will support capital requirements and economic growth at Athabasca’s other asset base areas.
The transaction involved a number of complex oil and gas, M&A, securities law, regulatory, environmental, employment and tax issues.
Athabasca Oil Corporation was represented by Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP with a team led by Robert Desbarats and Janice Buckingham (energy), and that included Noralee Bradley (corporate), Peter Glossop (competition/antitrust & foreign investment), Damian Rigolo (employment & labour), Kevin Lemke (energy) and Miju Damodar (corporate).
Statoil Canada was represented by Bennett Jones LLP with a team led by JP Pham and including Robert Booth, Ashley White, Brad Eidsness, Kevin Zhou (oil and gas), Beth Riley (competition), Kahlan Mills, Jeremy Russell (corporate and securities), Christine Plante (employment), Brad Gilmour and Cassia Prentice (regulatory) and Alan Rautenberg (tax).