Shell Buys More Oil Sands Properties

A Royal Dutch Shell PLC unit will pay $2.16 billion to buy a company with substantial oil sands properties in Canada.

Purchasing BlackRock Ventures gives Shell Canada, 75-percent owned by RDS, an additional 12,000 to 14,000 thousand barrels per day of production and an estimated 209 million barrels of reserves in Alberta, the Independent reported Tuesday.

Oil sands, which are abundant in Canada, are essentially stretches of oil-soaked mud that become commercial once the price of crude oil rises to current levels.

BlackRock’s Peace River and Cold Lake fields are estimated to contain a total of 1 billion barrels of oil. Shell’s fields in the Athabasca and Peace River regions contain an estimated 17 billion barrels.

Shell Canada already produces 84,000 barrels a day from oil sands and has an estimated 865 million barrels of reserves.