Whitecap buys Imperial’s legacy oil assets
— the 15,000 barrels of oil per day (50 per cent natural gas) in average 2013 production being sold is just five per cent of Imperial’s overall output.
Last year, Imperial and its U.S. parent ExxonMobil Corp. started producing from their $12.9-billion Kearl oilsands mining project and it is already being expanded.
Whitecap president and chief executive Grant Fagerheim said his company plans to give the assets it keeps — mainly Cardium formation light oil plays — investment they weren’t getting as small parts of Imperial’s heavy oil andoilsandsdominatedportfolio. “We’ll put more capital into them ... this just didn’t get the same level of capital that we will put into these project areas going forward,” he said.
Whitecap said it would increase its 2014 budget this year to $307 million from $255 million if the deal closes as expected in May and expects average corporate production of 31,600 boe/d, up from 27,900.
It expects 2015 average production to grow to 36,500 boe/d with a capital budget of $348 million as it develops new drilling opportunities on the Imperial lands.
Whitecap also announced Monday a 10 per cent increase in monthly dividends to 6.25 cents per share and outlined a $500-million bought deal financing with an underwriting syndicate of 12 banks who have agreed to buy 44.6 million shares for $11.20 each.