Canadian Natural Resources agreed to buy Cenovus Energy Inc.’s Pelican Lake heavy-oil project and other assets in northern Alberta for C$975 million ($788 million).
The sale is part of the firm's efforts of offloading parts of its portfolio to help pay for its $17.7-billion asset acquisition from ConocoPhillips Co. earlier this year.
"This represents a significant first step in our strategy to optimize our asset portfolio and deleverage our balance sheet as planned following the acquisition of the ConocoPhillips assets," said Brian Ferguson, Cenovus's president and chief executive, in a statement. "The divestiture processes for the remainder of our legacy conventional assets are proceeding as expected, with strong interest from potential buyers."
The assets Cenovus is selling to Canadian Natural produce about 19,600 barrel-of-oil equivalents per day.
