Anglo-Dutch oil and gas giant Royal Dutch Shell said that its subsidiary Shell Gas B.V. is all set to sell its entire stake in Canadian Natural Resources, a Canadian oil and gas firm, for about $3.3bn.
Image: Royal Dutch Shell head office in Carel van Bylandtlaan, Netherlands. Photo: courtesy of P.L. van Till at nl.wikipedia.
Shell will sell all the 97.6 million shares it owns in the Canadian Natural Resources, which is based in Calgary, Alberta. In this regard, Shell has signed an underwriting agreement with Goldman Sachs & Co, RBC Capital Markets, Scotiabank and TD Securities.
In June 2017, Shell disclosed that it held a stake of 8% in Canadian Natural, reported Reuters. The publication, citing sources familiar with the development, said that the sale was being carried out to exit from Canada’s oil sands.
Shell said that it will use the proceeds from the sale of its Canadian Natural stake to cut down its net debt. It is expecting the sale to be closed on 9 May, 2018.
In late 2016, the oil major announced a $30bn divestment program from 2016 to 2018 to cover the costs of its $50bn acquisition of BG Group. Since then, Shell has been executing a series of divestments.
One of the biggest of the divestitures was the sale of its oil sands assets in Canada for $7.25bn in last March.
Towards the end of last year, Shell agreed to divest a package of UK North Sea oil and gas assets to UK-based Chrysaor for $3.8bn. Shell, then said, that the sale was part of its efforts to enhance its competitiveness in the UK upstream business.
Prior to that, in November 2017, Shell got into a deal to sell its stake in Australian energy group Woodside Petroleum to equity investors for nearly $1.7bn.
In late April, 2018, Shell agreed to sell its downstream business in Argentina to Raízen, a Brazilian ethanol producer for $950m. Before that, in March, it agreed to offload Shell Iraq to a subsidiary of Japan-based Itochu for $406m.