First Calgary close to decision on its future

The highly anticipated future of First Calgary Petroleums — the little Canadian company with no production, but big gas assets in Algeria — could be known by the end of May.

After seven months of evaluating strategic options, including outright sale or a partnership to develop its reserves, First Calgary said talks are “progressing well” and involve a “number of parties.”

That list is believed to include Spain’s Repsol, Norway’s Statoil, France’s Total and Gaz de France and, most recently, India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp.

The Financial Express in Bombay said ONGC or its wholly owned unit, ONGC Videsh, put in a bid for First Calgary, which has a market value of $2.5 billion.

Like China’s state-owned companies, ONGC is scouring the globe for new assets to meet the demands of its booming economy.

It has interests in a dozen countries, including Sudan and Russia, and increased output from overseas by 31 percent last year to 5.06 million metric tons of oil and gas, the bulk of the 70 percent that India imports.

ONGC is focused mostly on First Calgary’s 49 percent stakes in two Algerian blocks worth about $1 billion — one with reserves estimated at 12.5 trillion cubic feet and the other with 350 billion-400 billion cubic feet of gas and 100 million barrels of oil and liquids.

Meanwhile, First Calgary’s losses edged up to $2.7 million in the first quarter, compared with $2.3 million a year earlier, while capital spending dropped to $12.5 million from $14.2 million.

—Gary Park