Energy firm to lay off 300 in the province

ConocoPhillips is laying off 300 Alberta workers weeks after announcing the sale of oilsands and natural gas assets to Cenovus Energy Inc. in a blockbuster $17.7-billion deal.

A spokesman for ConocoPhillips Canada said the company will be much smaller after the sale, which comes amid a spate of international producers selling their stakes in Alberta’s oilsands.

The layoffs, which are concentrated in Calgary, began this week, though all affected employees are expected to be notified by May 15.

“We’ve had to adjust our resources to match the reduced size of the business,” spokesman Rob Evans said.

Cenovus is buying out ConocoPhillips’ stake in their jointly owned oilsands venture along with the Houston company’s assets in the Deep Basin resource play in Alberta and British Columbia.

The deal adds the equivalent of 298,000 barrels of oil per day to Cenovus’ production, making the Calgary company the country’s biggest thermal oilsands producer.

The sale, which Cenovus will pay for in shares and cash, is expected to close in the second quarter, though it has attracted some heated shareholder opposition.

Frustrated the deal dilutes the value of the company’s shares, the managing director of Coerente Capital Management Inc., which owns 500,000 Cenovus shares, has asked the Ontario Securities Commission to halt the deal, pending a shareholder vote, the Financial Post reported.

Cenovus, however, said it followed the rules when structuring the deal and didn’t need to ask for shareholders to vote on it.