More Canadian oil assets snapped up by foreign companies

One of the larger Canadian oil and gas entities, Nexen (TSX: NXY) has been the recipient of a cash US$27.50/share takeover offer from CNOOC (NYSE: CEO), which is a Chinese state-owned corporation.

A deal this size also incurs political risk – it has to be cleared by the Minister of Industry.

About a quarter of Nexen’s operations are in Canada, which means that the deal is more likely to proceed than get killed off. Notably, Nexen owns 7.23% of Syncrude – and with Sinopec owning another 9.03% of Syncrude, that means China will have about 1/6th of Syncrude (16.26%).