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

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

. Originally the Canadian subsidiary of US-based Occidental Petroleum (known as Canadian Occidental Petroleum or CanOxy), it became an independent company, Nexen, in 2000. Nexen was acquired by

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

-based

CNOOC Limited CNOOC Limited () is China's largest producer of 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 in Hong Kong since February 2001. It w ...

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

oil sands Oil sands, tar sands, crude bitumen, or bituminous sands, are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit. Oil sands are either loose sands or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and wate ...

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 some ...

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

as well as conventional exploration and development primarily in the

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

, offshore in

West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, M ...

, and deepwater exploration in the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United ...

History

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

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

. 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 (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...

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 (NDP) is a social-democratic political party in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It currently forms the official opposition, but has been a dominant force in Saskatchewan politics since the 1940s. The p ...

Premier

Allan Blakeney Allan Emrys Blakeney (September 7, 1925April 16, 2011) was the tenth premier of Saskatchewan from 1971 to 1982, and leader of the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party (NDP). Early life and career Born in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, Blakeney took his ...

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

Grant Devine Donald Grant Devine, SOM (born July 5, 1944) was the 11th premier of Saskatchewan from May 8, 1982 to November 1, 1991. Early life Born in Regina, Saskatchewan, he received a BSc in Agriculture degree specializing in Agricultural Economics i ...

. In 2000, the company partnered with the

Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board (french: Régime de retraite des enseignantes et des enseignants de l'Ontario) is an independent organization responsible for administering defined-benefit pensions for school teachers of the Canadian pr ...

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 NOVA Chemicals Corporation is a Canadian petrochemical company that has been in operation since 1954. NOVA was formed as provincial crown corporation called the Alberta Gas Trunk Line Company Limited to manage Alberta's natural gas collection s ...

, what is now known as the Nexen Building.

Acquisition by CNOOC Limited

In July 2012,

, a major subsidiary of

CNOOC China National Offshore Oil Corporation, or CNOOC Group ( Chinese: 中国海洋石油总公司 Pinyin: ''Zhōngguó Háiyáng Shíyóu Zǒnggōngsī''), is one of the largest national oil companies in China, and the third-largest national oil ...

headquartered in

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

, 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 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 Comm ...

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 inst ...

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 co ...

$26, plus accrued and unpaid

dividend A dividend is a distribution of profits by a corporation to its shareholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, it is able to pay a portion of the profit as a dividend to shareholders. Any amount not distributed is taken to be re-i ...

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 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 from its former namesake Nexen Building to The Bow, subleasing 8 floors from Cenovus 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 through a 7.23% ownership of Syncrude and the Long Lake project), the UK North Sea (including the Buzzard oil field), 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 and OPTI's OrCrude process for on-site upgrading. Production capacity at Long Lake was estimated of bitumen per day which could be upgraded to of synthetic crude. The proved reserves at the Long Lake site are 310,000,000 bbls. In 2017, the site produced approximately of bitumen. 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 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 in ...

. 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,

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

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

, and

electrical power Electric power is the rate at which electrical energy is transferred by an electric circuit. The SI unit of power is the watt, one joule per second. Standard prefixes apply to watts as with other SI units: thousands, millions and billions o ...

References