The Government of Canada is now out of the oil and natural gas business, netting nearly C$3.2 billion (US$2.5 billion) from the sale of its remaining 19% stake in Petro-Canada Ltd. In the record equity offering, 49.4 million common shares were sold for C$64.50 ($50.42) per share.

Petro-Canada, which is one of Canada’s largest oil and natural gas companies, did not receive any proceeds from the sale, nor did it sell any newly issued shares in the offering. The joint book-running managers for the offering were CIBC World Markets Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and RBC Capital Markets.

The producer was created in July 1975 under the Petro-Canada Act, which established a Crown corporation to create a strong presence in the oil and gas industry and to identify new Canadian energy resources. Privatization of the company began in the early 1990s, and in the past few years, the company has expanded with its exploration and production (E&P) activities and with acquisitions. Petro-Canada’s E&P focus is oil from Canada’s East Coast offshore, natural gas in North America, oil sands in Western Canada, and international oil and gas exploration and production. The fifth core business is downstream refining and marketing.

“It is an end of an era [and] Trudeau’s energy policy is now officially gone and that’s a good thing,” wrote John Kinsey with Caldwell Securities Ltd. He said the public did not like the government having ownership in the energy company. “At that stage it came out of Trudeau’s energy policy and people were very sour on government intervention in the oil patch.”

©Copyright 2004 Intelligence Press Inc. Allrights reserved. The preceding news report may not be republishedor redistributed, in whole or in part, in any form, without priorwritten consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.