PetroChina Mulls Takeover of Athabasca Oilsands Project

A countdown is expected to begin within days on a process that could result in Chinese PetroChina taking 100 per cent ownership of a joint venture oilsands project in northern Alberta.

Athabasca Oil Sands Corp. reported Tuesday that it has received Alberta order in council approval on the MacKay River project it is proposing to build with its 60 per cent partner, PetroChina, and is awaiting final endorsement from Alberta Environment.

Under its 2009 agreement with PetroChina, when it sold 60 per cent of the MacKay and Dover projects for $1.9 billion, final regulatory approval on each project triggers a 31-day "put/call" option under which Athabasca can choose to sell or PetroChina can choose to buy the 40 per cent it doesn't own.

The publicly traded arm of state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. would pay $680 million to take over the rest of MacKay, a 150,000barrel-per-day multiphase thermal project, and $1.32 billion to buy the rest of the 250,000bpd Dover project, approval of which could come as soon as late 2012.

All the 2012 activity will re-quire more staff - Svarte said Athabasca plans to increase its workforce of about 200 to 350 over the next year.

Athabasca has $1.35 billion of cash and short-term investments to pay for its capital program, it said.

(calgaryherald.com, Edited by Topco)