Imperial Oil Buys Into Exxon Move, Shell Partner Restarts Refinery: Energy Business Review

The Calgary-based Imperial Oil (AMEX:IMO) shells out $1.55 billion to acquire a 50 percent interest in Exxon Mobil Corporation’s (NYSE:XOM) purchase of  Celtic Exploration (CEXJF.PK), a move which gets Imperial into shale plays. Prior to this move, Exxon agreed to purchase Celtic outright for approximately $2.64 billion while it already owns 69.6 percent of Imperial. Upon the transaction’s close, the two firms will obtain access to 545,000 net acres in the liquids-rich Montney shale and 104,000 net acres lying in the Duvernay shale along with additional acreage in other areas of Alberta to be gained in the Celtic purchase.

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Motiva Enterprise, a joint venture with Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDSA)(NYSE:RDSB), announced that it will restart its 325,000-barrel-per-day refinery expansion in Port Arthur as early as next week now that repairs to a unit that broke down days after its June start-up are complete, according to a knowledgeable source on Wednesday. Shell and Motiva, along with third partner Saudi Arabian Oil Co., launched the expansion in May before a chemical accident forced its main crude distillation unit to be closed.