Suncor puts Alaska assets up for sale

Suncor Energy is putting its Alaska leases up for sale.

“That asset is off strategy and it is for sale,” Suncor spokeswoman Sneh Seetal said.

In its second quarter financial filings, the Canadian company said it “recognized a charge of $44 million to reflect the write-down of certain land leases in the Natural Gas operating segment. These assets are in areas of Western Canada and Alaska that the company does not plan to pursue given its strategic business alignment.”

Suncor picked up almost 300,000 acres in the Brooks Range foothills and the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska when it acquired the assets of the Petro-Canada.

In the foothills, Suncor became a partner of BG and Anadarko Petroleum. In NPR-A, Suncor became a partner of FEX, a subsidiary of Talisman. In March 2010, Talisman announced plans to sell more than 1 million net acres in the NPR-A and the foothills.

In September 2009, Suncor announced plans to divest much of its natural gas assets by the end of 2010, but the company had not reached as decision as of late May.

Suncor already divested land in the Rockies, Western Canada and Trinidad and Tobago, and proposed divesting other Western Canada lands and “non-core” North Sea assets.

Suncor has been focusing its attention on its oil sands operations, but planned to hold on to some natural gas production as “a natural price hedge against the cost of energy consumption” at oil sands operations, according to a May 2010 investor presentation.

Alaska natural gas, however, is stranded in the state until a major pipeline is built.

—Eric Lidji