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Shell has agreed to buy Canadian shale producer ARC Resources for $16.4bn, in a deal that would be the oil major’s biggest since it bought BG Group a decade ago.
Shell said it would pay $13.6bn, three-quarters in shares, and assume $2.8bn in debt for Calgary-based ARC. The deal values ARC at a 20 per cent premium to its recent share price, which has been flat in 2026 but more than tripled over the past five years.
The deal will add about 370,000 barrels a day of oil and gas to Shell’s production, helping boost its production growth rate as it deals with investors’ questions about the company’s prospects.
Shell said the acquisition would boost production growth from 1 per cent a year to 4 per cent and add 2bn barrels to its proved and probable reserves.
Wael Sawan, Shell’s chief executive since 2023, has avoided large acquisitions until now, instead targeting smaller deals to improve Shell’s portfolio. But he said buying ARC would strengthen Shell’s “resource base for decades to come”.
The move marks a return to North American shale for Shell, which sold its US shale business in Texas’s Permian Basin to ConocoPhillips in 2021 for $9.5bn.
Sawan said ARC, which produces mainly gas and condensate — a light-coloured liquid that can be used in refineries and to make ethylene — would make Canada a “heartland” for Shell.
The deal also marks another step in Shell’s push to be one of the largest players in LNG, a move that was first supercharged by its purchase of BG Group for $53bn.
ARC’s reserves could be used to feed LNG Canada, a $40bn liquefied natural gas plant on Canada’s west coast in which Shell holds a 40 per cent stake.
Shell states that it either “owns” or is “involved” with more than 30 per cent of global LNG capacity, and is the world’s largest trader of the fuel.
Canada’s oil industry is enjoying a bumper year with producers expected to earn a C$90bn (US$66bn) windfall this year if prices stay above $100 a barrel, according to research by Enverus, a data provider.
The industry is also benefiting from a more positive relationship with the new Liberal government led by Prime Minister Mark Carney, who has adopted a more pragmatic approach to fossil fuels than his predecessor Justin Trudeau.
Carney has announced plans to boost fossil fuel exports to insulate the country’s economy from a bruising trade war with the US and has supported efforts to build new pipelines to enable producers to transport more fuel to Asia.
Canada’s energy minister Tim Hodgson told the FT last month that the world faced the biggest disruption to energy supplies in history and that his country’s producers were in an ideal position to meet customers’ need for alternative supplies.
Eric Nuttall, a senior portfolio manager at investment group Ninepoint Partners, said the deal by Shell “makes very good strategic sense given how short resource they were with a likely near-term approval” of the second phase of LNG Canada.
“We think they’re paying a fair valuation given the deep inventory that ARC has and the likelihood of a counterbid to be low,” he added.
Shell’s shares were flat after the deal was announced on Monday afternoon in London.
Source:
www.ft.com