Canadian Oil Patch Mega Merger

Suncor and Petro Canada announced this morning that they have agreed to an all stock merger with Suncor taking over the management of the newly merged company. This would make the merged company the largest oil company in Canada.

Suncor is the oldest participant in the Fort McMurray oil sands arena and widely considered the pioneer in oil sands extraction technology. Suncor was the first company to finally succeed in getting oil out of the sand in Fort McMurray. Many companies had tried and failed over the years before Suncor found success. Suncor's decision to treat the oil sands as a mining operation with shovels and trucks was the key to successfully harvesting the enormous oil resources in the Alberta oil sands.

Petro Canada has a more checkered past in the Canadian oil patch. They were started by the federal government as a way for the Canadian government to take part, or take over, the Canadian oil business. This was a disaster of monumental proportions and the company finally had to be handed back over to the private sector with the Canadian government selling their shares in 2004. This was another very clear account of a government completely failing in their attempt to run a company.

While I have no issue with foreign equity coming into Canada it is nice to see an all Canadian merger forming a company with global scale.