Saskatchewan Oil & Gas Corporation, also known as SaskOil, was a Canadian

Crown corporation Crown corporation () is the term used in Canada for organizations that are structured like private companies, but are directly and wholly owned by the government. Crown corporations have a long-standing presence in the country, and have a sign ...

owned by the

Government of Saskatchewan The Government of Saskatchewan () is the provincial government of the province of Saskatchewan. Its powers and structure are set out in the Constitution Act, 1867. In modern Canadian use, the term "government" refers broadly to the cabinet of th ...

from 1973 to 1986, when the company went public under the name Wascana Energy Inc. In 1987, the last remaining government interest in the corporation was sold to Canadian Occidental Petroleum and in 1997 it was bought entirely by Canadian Occidental.

History

Saskatchewan Oil & Gas Corporation, or SaskOil, was established in 1973 by the

as a

. It was the first state-owned oil and gas company in North America, 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 ...

. It was responsible for

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) and lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturate ...

and

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 ...

exploration, extraction, and marketing in the province of

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...

. In 1986, 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 ...

from

Progressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan The Progressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan is a conservative political party in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Founded in 1905 by former Northwest Territories Premier Frederick Haultain, the party was first known as the Provincial ...

privatized it by selling the majority of the company to the

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

. Its name was changed to Wascana Energy Inc and shares were made available on the public markets. In 1987, the last remaining government interest in the corporation was sold to Canadian Occidental Petroleum. In 1997,

Talisman Energy Talisman Energy Inc. was a Canadian independent petroleum company that existed between 1993 and 2015. The company was created from the assets of BP Canada after British Petroleum divested its 57 percent stake in June 1992. It was one of Canada' ...

initiated a

hostile takeover In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company (law), company (the ''target'') by another (the ''acquirer'' or ''bidder''). In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are publicly listed, in contrast t ...

of Wascana Energy. However, Canadian Occidental (later known as Nexen and now CNOOC International) countered this as a

white knight A white knight is a mythological figure and literary stock character. They are portrayed alongside a black knight as diametric opposites. A white knight usually represents a heroic warrior fighting against evil, with the role in medieval literatu ...

and responded with a higher bid, which was supported by Wascana Energy's board of directors.

Operations

In 1997, Wascana was one of the top three oil and gas producers in Canada, producing 115,000

barrels of oil equivalent The barrel of oil equivalent (BOE) is a unit of energy based on the approximate energy released by burning one barrel (, or about ) of crude oil. The BOE is used by oil and gas companies in their financial statements as a way of combining oil an ...

in Northern Canada and 264,000 worldwide, with international interests in

Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...

and

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Corporation Defunct oil and gas companies of Canada Natural gas companies of Canada Companies based in Saskatchewan Energy companies established in 1975 Non-renewable resource companies established in 1975 Non-renewable resource companies disestablished in 1986 Former Crown corporations of Saskatchewan Non-renewable resource companies established in 1986 Non-renewable resource companies disestablished in 1997 1975 establishments in Saskatchewan 1986 disestablishments in Saskatchewan 1986 establishments in Saskatchewan 1997 disestablishments in Saskatchewan