China’s biggest oil company is abandoning Canada’s tar sands/oil sands in response to crashing global oil prices.
PetroChina announced last Thursday that it was “‘actively engaged’ in talks to swap North American assets with international oil companies, acknowledging the negotiations were mostly focused on Canada’s oil sands, which require high crude prices to be profitable,” oilprice.com reports.
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“The move includes an almost 10% cut in exploration and production spending compared with last year,” Jamasmie writes. “The rationale is that swapping assets would be more efficient than outright sales, which, while oil prices are low, would ‘cause losses for international oil companies,’” she adds, citing PetroChina Vice-Chairman Wang Dongjin.
