BP Amoco is shedding its oil interests in Canada to concentrateon natural gas, with a vow to be the lowest-cost leader in aCanadian producer community tooling up to expand exports to theUnited States.The newly-merged empire’s Canadian arm has put upfor sale assets currently producing 53,300 barrels per day ornearly all of the former Amoco Canada’s oil holdings. The only gasput on the block is about 40 MMcf/d, or 4% of BP Amoco’s Canadiandaily production of about 1 Bcf, which is associated with oilproperties.

Although the oil assets are being sold in regional packages, BPAmoco said it will consider single bids for the entire suite. Anyorganization that bought the whole offering would instantly rank asCanada’s 20th-largest oil company.

BP Amoco’s regional president for Canada, Joseph Bryant, vowed”our goal is to be the lowest-cost producer in Canada in ournatural gas, natural gas liquids and chemicals operations.” The BPAmoco action expressed in a nutshell is a trend throughout theCanadian industry, which is switching to gas as fast as it can inanticipation of the 2000 completion of Alliance Pipeline on top ofexpansions by the TransCanada and Foothills-Northern Border exportroutes. In the first five months of this year, Canadian producersmanaged to complete 2,276 new gas wells despite the squeeze onrevenues and budgets brought on by poor oil prices for most of theperiod. In the same period a year ago, Canadian producers completed2,091 gas wells.

Gordon Jaremko, Calgary

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