Occidental in Oil Sands Deal with Enerplus
Occidental Petroleum Corp. signed an agreement with Enerplus Resources Fund to buy a 15 percent interest in Alberta’s Joslyn Oil Sands Project for $492.1 million.
Operated by Total, the oil sands project holds over 8 billion barrels of bitumen or heavy crude. Occidental’s net recoverable reserves are estimated at 370 million barrels.
While the project is still in the early stages, it currently has more than 1,800 wells drilled, Occidental said.
Occidental expects to spend about $2 billion over a number of years to develop the reserves. Production should start in 2014 at about 11,000 barrels of oil per day, eventually growing to about 31,000 barrels of oil per day.
The deal is expected to close in the third quarter.
