The acquisition, which requires approval by regulators in both countries, would expand a growing Chinese presence in Canada’s oil sands industry following multibillion-dollar investments by other state-owned companies.
OPTI owns a 35 percent working interest in Long Lake and three other project areas located in the Athabasca region of northeastern Alberta, CNOOC said.
The remainder is held by Nexen, a Canadian energy company that is the sole operator.
CNOOC said it would pay OPTI shareholders $34 million and assume just over $2 billion in debt.
“We are pleased to expand our presence in the oil sands business,” CNOOC CEO Yang Hua said in a written statement.
Alberta has the world’s third-largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, with more than 170 billion barrels.
Total production from Alberta oil sands is forecast to nearly triple to 3.7 million barrels per day in 2025.
Flush with cash from China’s economic boom, state-owned energy companies are investing abroad to profit from future demand growth.
Chinese investment in Alberta comes as Canadian officials try to diversify oil exports that now go mostly to the US.
Plans call for construction of two pipelines, one to Canada’s Pacific coast and the other to Texas.
OPTI’s share of resources is estimated to be 195 million barrels of proved reserves, 534 million barrels of probable reserves, 1.1 billion barrels of contingent resources and 335 million barrels of prospective resources, according to CNOOC.
It said those should support 430,000 barrels per day of bitumen production, with OPTI’s share amounting to 150,000 barrels per day.
In October, CNOOC paid Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Energy Corp. $1.08 billion for a one-third stake in a drilling project in South Texas. In January, CNOOC agreed to pay $570 million for a one-third stake in a Chesapeake project in an emerging oil field in northeast Colorado and southeast Wyoming.
China’s two other main state-owned oil and gas producers also have invested in Alberta.
In 2009, PetroChina, Asia’s largest oil and gas producer by volume, bought a $1.7 billion stake in Athabasca Oil Sands Corp.
Sinopec, also known as China Petroleum and Chemical Corp., owns a stake in the Northern Gateway pipeline plan and paid $4.6 billion for a 9 percent stake in Syncrude, Canada’s largest oil sands project.
