A Marriage Made for Mordor

As the oil price continues to delay development in the controversial and dirty oil sands, two Canadian oil companies have responded by consolidating their operations and merging.

When Suncor Energy and Petro-Canada announced earlier this week that they were to merge to create Canada’s largest oil company, Suncor’s president and CEO Rick George said: “I don’t know if it is a marriage made in heaven. But it is a match made in Canada.”

The new $43 billion giant will also be a match made for the hell of Mordor, as some have labelled the tar sands of Alberta.  The merger should allow Suncor and Petro-Canada to withstand the pressure of any take-over from foreign oil companies, but more importantly allow the two to continue developing the oil sands, despite the low oil price.

As CBC reported “ Suncor and Petro-Canada are among the many Canadian energy firms to put off building massive oilsands projects due to languishing commodity prices and rattled financial markets.  The larger company will have the financial resources to move ahead with the most promising oilsands plays available to Suncor and Petro-Canada.”

The Economist magazine also added that any possible savings from the merger will be possible “thanks chiefly to the two firms’ complementary investments in Canada’s tar sands …. The two firms plan to share pipelines and other infrastructure at existing facilities and future ones. The two companies also hope their merger will help reduce inflation in the oil-sands region, which took off amid a mad rush to develop new projects when the oil price was high.”

How many more mergers will we see so big oil can carry on exploiting this highly polluting fuel…