Partners settle Fort Hills funding dispute
• Suncor Energy Inc. and Teck Resources Ltd. are getting a bargain price for bigger stakes in the Fort Hills oilsands mine they are buying from partner Total S.A., analysts say.
The two Canadian companies said Wednesday they will pay an additional $ 420 million to take over a three per cent stake in the project from the French oil giant.
Suncor, the operator, is paying about $300 million to increase ownership to 53.06 per cent and Teck is paying $120 million to up its stake to 20.89 per cent. Total’s share is falling to 26.05 per cent from 29.2 per cent.
“We’re pleased to have reached this agreement and taken a bigger stake in what is arguably the best longterm growth project in our industry,” Suncor CEO Steve Williams said in a statement.
Analysts said Thursday the price of about $ 69,000 per daily barrel of production for the Total share is much less than the $ 90,000 per daily barrel cost of the overall project, which is designed with capacity of 194,000 barrels per day of bitumen.
Suncor and Teck said the deal settles a dispute triggered last year when Total refused to take part in a project to spend an additional $1 billion in 2017 to accelerate construction. The French company said at the time it would not accept “substantial cost increases” at Fort Hills.
Last February, Suncor said delays caused by the Fort McMurray wildfire in 2016, along with construction changes to boost capacity, added from $1.4 billion to $ 1.9 billion to Fort Hills’ estimated cost, taking it to between $16.5 billion and $17 billion.
Total has been reluctant to spend on the oilsands, which have been attacked by environmentalists as being among the dirtiest sources of energy in the world and considered among the most expensive to develop. It sold a 10 per cent stake in Fort Hills to Suncor in 2015 and, a year before, agreed with partners to shelve the proposed $ 11- billion proposed Joslyn oilsands mine. It also sold its 49 per cent stake in the stalled Voyageur oilsands upgrader to Suncor.
Other companies selling oilsands assets in the past two years include Americans Marathon Oil, Murphy Oil and ConocoPhillips, Norway’s Statoil and Royal Dutch Shell.