Another Chinese purchase of Canadian energy resources:
Chinese oil group PetroChina is buying a stake in a big Canadian shale gasfield for $2.2bn, highlighting Chinese energy companies’ growing interest in Canadian resources after the $18bn Cnooc-Nexen deal.
PetroChina, China’s biggest oil company by production, will form a joint venture with Encana of Canada that gives the Chinese company a 49.9 per cent stake in Encana’s Duvernay lands project in Alberta, an area that contains shale oil and shale gas.
Canadian PM Stephen Harper described the last Chinese energy purchase in Canada as "the end of a trend," warning, "Canadians have not spent years reducing the ownership of sectors of the economy by our own governments, only to see them bought and controlled by foreign governments instead.” The trend, however, has not quite ended yet.