Suncor Petro-Canada merger unlikely to affect BTX, OX sales

摘要

The proposed merger of Suncor and Petro-Canada will certainly impact on their oil sands projects, but seems unlikely to affect their benzene, toluene, xylenes (BTX) and ortho-xylene (OX) businesses. Both Suncor's Voyageur upgrader and the third phase of its Firebag in-situ oil sands project, and Petro-Canada's Fort Hills oil sands mine, had been on hold. Suncor had slashed its planned 2009 capital expenditure from $10 to $3 B following its Q4 and Q1 losses. By sharing infrastructure for the oil sands projects, the two companies could save costs. Suncor talks of restarting parts of its projects by Q2. There could also be elimination of duplicated functions in the two head offices in Calgary.