Unocal’s Canadian subsidiary, Unocal Canada Management Ltd., hasconsolidated 96% of the shares of Northrock Resources Ltd., underits ownership in its recent bid to complete the acquisition of theCalgary-based oil and natural gas exploration and productioncompany.

Unocal said the conditions of its offer to acquire all of theNorthrock shares it does not already own have been satisfied orwaived and it has acquired 21.1 million shares or 92% of the sharesavailable for the offer. The offer has been extended until June30, after which Unocal will exercise its right to acquire all theremaining shares at the same prices as those tendered to the offer.

The California-based energy giant had offered C$10.10 per Northrockshare, which adds up to a $235 million bid for the approximately 23million Northrock shares involved. Last year Unocal paid C$265 millionor between C$14 and C$16 for its original 46% stake in the Canadiancompany. (see Daily GPI, April 16, 1999)

The acquisition continues a recent trend among the enterprising tosnap up distressed or undervalued Canadian reserves to take advantageof higher gas and oil prices and new avenues to market for naturalgas. Stand-outs in the trend over the last few weeks included HuskyOil’s takeover of Renaissance Energy, and Canadian Natural Resources’white knight rescue of Ranger Oil. (see Daily GPI, June 20 & June 16)

With the Northrock acquisition Unocal gets back in the CanadianE&P game in what is currently one of the hottest drillingareas, the northeastern part of British Columbia. Northrock’sexploration activity in that area fits in with Unocal’s storage andpipeline assets in the same region.

When the Unocal offer was announced in April Northrock had anaverage daily gross production of 160 MMcf, and 11,000 barrels ofcrude oil and gas liquids. It reported net proved reserves of 35million bbl of oil and liquids and 363 Bcf of gas.

Unocal disposed of substantially all of its Canadian E&Passets in April 1998, when it sold them to Tarragon Oil & Gasfor for C$308 million in a deal that gave Unocal 27% of Tarragonshares, a C$100 million debenture and three seats on Tarragon’sboard. The assets subsequently were sold by Tarragon to MarathonOil.

In other areas, Unocal’s Spirit Energy 76 unit has narrowed itsfocus to the Gulf of Mexico, announcing last month the separation ofits E&P assets in the Permian and San Juan basins, and the mergingthose operations with Midland, TX-based Titan Exploration, Inc. tocreate a new publicly traded company named Pure Resources, Inc. (seeDaily GPI, May 30)

A year ago it completed the trade of most of its Rocky Mountain oiland gas assets to Tom Brown Inc., receiving 5.8 million shares of TomBrown common stock (about 16.5%) and $5 million for the properties.(see Daily GPI, July 7, 1999)

©Copyright 2000 Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. Thepreceding news report may not be republished or redistributed, inwhole or in part, in any form, without prior written consent ofIntelligence Press, Inc.