Canadian Oil & Gas Upstream M&A Activity Heats Up in October 2015

Analysis in CanOils’ new report “Canadian M&A Activity Heats Up in October 2015” shows that Canadian oil and gas upstream sector had Cdn$7.3 billion of M&A deals announced during October 2015. The bulk of this value is made up of Suncor’s Cdn$6.6 billion takeover bid for Canadian Oil Sands Limited, which was featured in September’s M&A review from CanOils. Even if the Suncor bid had not been made, the remaining monthly total of around Cdn$748 million would still be the highest monthly total since June 2015.

Source: CanOils M&A Database. Note: Excludes international deals involving Canadian companies.

The vast majority of this Cdn$748 million total was composed of PKN Orlen making an offer to acquire Kicking Horse Energy, and both Penn West and Pengrowth divesting non-core assets to meet their respective disposition targets. There were also a few important sales by Canadian companies overseas, including Encana exiting the D.J. Basin in the U.S. and Mart Resources finding a buyer in the form of a local Nigerian company.

These deals display an increase in Canadian oil and gas upstream M&A activity and form the main focus of this month’s M&A review, which also includes a detailed look at all of the main M&A stories for Canadian companies both in Canada and abroad. The report also provides a rundown of all assets that were put up for sale in October, including a look into the assets being made available by Cequence Energy’s decision to begin evaluating strategic alternatives.

Top 5 Deals in Canada in October 2015

Source: CanOils M&A Database. Note: Excludes international deals involving Canadian companies. 

Insights from CanOils’ M&A database, as well as data from CanOils’ Assets, Financings, Financial & Operating and Oilsands databases, help to provide a thorough, independent overview of the month’s biggest deals in the Canadian oil and gas industry in this report.