CNOOC Petroleum North America ULC, formerly known as Nexen, is a Canadian oil and gas company based in

Calgary Calgary () is a major city in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in C ...

, Alberta. Originally the Canadian subsidiary of US-based

Occidental Petroleum Occidental Petroleum Corporation (often abbreviated Oxy in reference to its ticker symbol and logo) is an American company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration in the United States and the Middle East as well as petrochemical manufacturing in the ...

(known as Canadian Occidental Petroleum or CanOxy), it became an independent company, Nexen, in 2000. Nexen was acquired by

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

–based

CNOOC Limited CNOOC Limited () is China's largest producer of Offshore (hydrocarbons), offshore crude oil and natural gas, noted as such in 2010. It is a major subsidiary of China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and has been listed on the Hong Kon ...

in 2013, and was rebranded under the current name at the end of 2018. It had three growth strategies :

oil sands Oil sands are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit. They are either loose sands, or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and water, soaked with bitumen (a dense and extremely viscous ...

and

shale gas Shale gas is an unconventional natural gas that is found trapped within shale formations. Since the 1990s, a combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing has made large volumes of shale gas more economical to produce, and ...

western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West, or Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a list of regions of Canada, Canadian region that includes the four western provinces and t ...

as well as conventional exploration and development primarily in the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

, offshore in

West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...

, and deepwater exploration in the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...

History

Nexen started in 1971 as Canadian Occidental Petroleum (CanOxy), and was 80% owned by

, an oil company based in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. In the first decade of its existence, CanOxy was fairly Canadian-oriented. During the 1980s and 1990s they increased their international holdings, first in the

, then into places like

Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...

and the

. Further Canadian assets were also acquired. In the 1990s, CanOxy purchased the assets of what once was the first state-owned oil and gas company in North America; Wascana Energy Inc., formerly known as SaskOil. Founded by

Saskatchewan New Democratic Party The Saskatchewan New Democratic Party (Saskatchewan NDP or Sask NDP), branded as the Saskatchewan New Democrats, is a social democratic political party in Saskatchewan, Canada. The party was founded in 1932 as the Farmer-Labour Group and was kno ...

Premier

Allan Blakeney Allan Emrys Blakeney (September 7, 1925April 16, 2011) was a Canadian politician who served as the tenth premier of Saskatchewan from 1971 to 1982. Originally from Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, Blakeney moved to Regina, Saskatchewan, and worked in t ...

in 1973, Saskoil was privatized in 1986 by Progressive Conservative Premier

Grant Devine Donald Grant Devine (born July 5, 1944) is a Canadian politician who served as the 11th premier of Saskatchewan from 1982 to 1991. He led the Progressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan from 1979 to 1992 and is one of only two leaders of that ...

. In 2000, the company partnered with the

Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board () is an independent organization responsible for administering defined benefit pension plan, defined-benefit pensions for school teachers of the provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of ...

to buy back Occidental Petroleum's shares. The newly independent company changed its name to Nexen and moved into the former headquarters of NOVA Corporation, what is now known as the Nexen Building.

Acquisition by CNOOC Limited

In July 2012,

, a major

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company (law), company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidia ...

CNOOC China National Offshore Oil Corporation, or CNOOC Group (), is the third-largest national oil company in China, after CNPC (parent of PetroChina) and China Petrochemical Corporation (parent of Sinopec). The CNOOC Group focuses on the exploita ...

headquartered in

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

, announced its intention to acquire Nexen for C$15.1 billion. The proposal was accepted by shareholders in September under interim chief executive Kevin Reinhart, but was a matter of significant public and political debate in Canada. Prime Minister

Stephen Harper Stephen Joseph Harper (born April 30, 1959) is a Canadian politician who served as the 22nd prime minister of Canada from 2006 to 2015. He is to date the only prime minister to have come from the modern-day Conservative Party of Canada, ser ...

approved the deal in December 2012 but simultaneously announced more stringent guidelines for foreign acquisitions of Canadian oil sands companies. The acquisition closed in February 2013, representing China's largest-ever foreign acquisition. Nexen's

common stock Common stock is a form of corporate equity ownership, a type of security. The terms voting share and ordinary share are also used frequently outside of the United States. They are known as equity shares or ordinary shares in the UK and other C ...

shareholders received cash proceeds of US$27.50, without interest, whereas

preferred stock Preferred stock (also called preferred shares, preference shares, or simply preferreds) is a component of share capital that may have any combination of features not possessed by common stock, including properties of both an equity and a debt ins ...

shareholders of Nexen received cash proceeds of

CAD Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...

$26, plus accrued and unpaid

dividend A dividend is a distribution of profits by a corporation to its shareholders, after which the stock exchange decreases the price of the stock by the dividend to remove volatility. The market has no control over the stock price on open on the ex ...

s without interest. In April 2014, Fang Zhi replaced Kevin Reinhart as the firm's chief executive. Two years after the deal, in 2015, about 14% of the company's workforce (300 in Calgary and 40 in the field) was fired in a move the drew concern in relation to Chinese ownership, but which at the time was consistent with layoffs at other companies in the industry in response to global oil price depression. ----The link provided above is to page D1; see als
link to page D5
The Nexen name disappeared from both legal and practical perspectives on 31 December 2018, and it became known as CNOOC Petroleum North America ULC henceforth. Simultaneously and with the same date of effectiveness, related Nexen subsidiaries and affiliates changed both their legal and branding names. Its American depository receipts remained concurrently traded on the

TSX The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX; ) is a stock exchange located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the List of stock exchanges, 10th largest exchange in the world and the third largest in North America based on market capitalization. Based in th ...

and its ultimate parent company,

, remained a foreign reporting issuer in Canada. the company had "shrunk considerably" since the CNOOC acquisition, having gone through multiple rounds of layoffs amid a difficult Canadian oil and gas industry as a whole. In 2019 the company moved its headquarters within

downtown Calgary Downtown Calgary is a dense urban district in central Calgary, Alberta. It contains the second largest concentration of head offices in Canada, despite only being the country's fourth largest city in terms of population. The downtown is divided in ...

from its former namesake Nexen Building to The Bow, subleasing 8 floors from

Cenovus Cenovus Energy Inc. (pronounced se-nō-vus) is a Canadian integrated oil and natural gas company headquartered in Calgary, Alberta. Its offices are located at Brookfield Place, having completed a move from the neighbouring Bow in 2019. Histo ...

and reducing its office space from approximately 620,000 sq ft to approximately 300,000 sq ft.

Energy operations

Nexen has interests in Canada (including the

Athabasca oil sands The Athabasca oil sands, also known as the Athabasca tar sands, are large deposits of oil sands rich in bitumen, a heavy and viscous form of petroleum, in northeastern Alberta, Canada. These reserves are one of the largest sources of unconventi ...

through a 7.23% ownership of

Syncrude Syncrude Canada Ltd. is one of the world's largest producers of synthetic crude oil from oil sands and the largest single source producer in Canada. It is located just outside Fort McMurray in the Athabasca Oil Sands, and has a nameplate capac ...

and the Long Lake project), the UK North Sea (including the

Buzzard oil field The Buzzard Oil Field is an oil field located in the North Sea Blocks 19/10, 19/5a, 20/6 and 20/1s. It was discovered in 2001 by PanCanadian, and developed initially by PanCanadian's successor EnCana and then by Nexen. The oil field was initially ...

), the United States, and offshore

. Beginning in February 2013, Nexen took accountability for managing approximately $8 billion in

assets located throughout North and Central America.

Long Lake

The Long Lake project in the Athabasca Oil Sands was initiated in 2001, as a 50/50 partnership between Nexen and OPTI Canada. It was started in order to develop the Long Lake site using

steam-assisted gravity drainage Steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD; "Sag-D") is an enhanced oil recovery technology for producing heavy crude oil and bitumen. It is an advanced form of steam stimulation in which a pair of horizontal wells are drilled into the oil reservoir, o ...

and OPTI's OrCrude process for on-site

upgrading Upgrading is the process of replacing a product with a newer version of the same product. In computing and consumer electronics, an upgrade is generally a replacement of hardware, software or firmware with a newer or better version, in order to ...

. Production capacity at Long Lake was estimated of

bitumen Bitumen ( , ) is an immensely viscosity, viscous constituent of petroleum. Depending on its exact composition, it can be a sticky, black liquid or an apparently solid mass that behaves as a liquid over very large time scales. In American Engl ...

per day which could be upgraded to of

synthetic crude Synthetic crude is the output from a bitumen/extra heavy oil upgrader facility used in connection with oil sand production. It may also refer to shale oil, an output from an oil shale pyrolysis. The properties of the synthetic crude depend on the ...

. The proved reserves at the Long Lake site are 310,000,000 bbls. In 2017, the site produced approximately of

. The Long Lake site has had a troubled history, including OPTI's near-bankruptcy in 2011 (with Nexen growing its ownership stake to 65% and eventually 100%), a significant

oil spill An oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment, especially the marine ecosystem, due to human activity, and is a form of pollution. The term is usually given to marine oil spills, where oil is released into th ...

in 2015, and an explosion in 2016 that resulted in two deaths and the permanent shutdown of the

upgrader An upgrader is a facility that upgrades bitumen (extra heavy oil) into synthetic crude oil. Upgrader plants are typically located close to oil sands production, for example, the Athabasca oil sands in Alberta, Canada or the Orinoco tar sands i ...

. In 2018, Nexen announced a $400 million expansion project, which is expected to begin production in late 2020.

Marketing

Nexen also has an Energy Marketing division that trades and markets proprietary and third-party

crude oil Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. The term ''petroleum'' refers both to naturally occurring u ...

natural gas Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...

liquid natural gas Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the volume o ...

, and

electrical power Electric power is the rate of transfer of electrical energy within a electric circuit, circuit. Its SI unit is the watt, the general unit of power (physics), power, defined as one joule per second. Standard prefixes apply to watts as with oth ...

References