Abu Dhabi Firm Buys Canada Energy Trust

Abu Dhabi National Energy Co. has agreed to buy Canada’s PrimeWest Energy Trust for $5 billion including debt, the companies said Monday.

The United Arab Emirates company said its TAQA North Ltd. subsidiary would pay $26.75 in cash for each PrimeWest unit and for each exchangeable share issued by trust operating company PrimeWest Energy Inc. of Calgary, Alberta.

The price is 26.5 percent more than the 30-day weighted average unit trading price on the Toronto Stock Exchange through Friday.

PrimeWest shares traded at $26.28, up $6.34 or 31.8 percent, in mid-afternoon trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange Monday.

PrimeWest is a conventional oil and gas trust that buys, develops, produces and sells natural gas, crude oil and natural gas liquids.

The TAQA offer, which Prime West’s board of directors unanimously recommended to unitholders, comes a month after the Abu Dhabi firm agreed to buy the Canadian unit of Irving, Texas’s Pioneer Natural Resources Co. for $540 million and five months after it bought Northrock Resources Ltd. from Pogo Producing Co. of Houston for $2 billion, The Globe and Mail reported.