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Bloomberg
MEG Energy Corp looks to be on its own again after Husky Energy Inc pulled its hostile bid for the Canadian oil-sands producer and no white knight emerged during the takeover battle.
The data room that MEG had opened to entice other suitors during the Husky tussle is now closed, and its strategic review process has concluded, said Megan Hjulfors, a MEG spokeswoman. The company plans to release its updated 2019 plan — which will resemble its previously announced strategy, though likely with capital spending lower than the C$500 million ($377 million) it projected in October — within the next two weeks, she said.
The strategy MEG has been touting for about a year entails boosting production to 113,000 barrels a day by 2020, from 100,000 currently, by expanding its Christina Lake oil-sands project in Alberta and deploying its technique of injecting a mixture of natural gas and steam into its wells.
The company was coping with Alberta’s pipeline bottlenecks by increasing its takeaway capacity on the Flanagan Seaway conduit to 100,000 barrels a day by July 2020. And it was working on decreasing its debt load — which at about four times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation was higher than most peers’ — to about two times Ebitda by 2020.