Repsol makes money again and leaves Canada. The Spanish oil company announced this Thursday the sale of all its oil and gas assets in the North American country to the local Peyto group in exchange for 468 million dollars (437 million euros at the current exchange rate). The agreement includes all mineral rights, facilities and infrastructure related to Canadian oil and gas exploration and production activities. And it represents a new injection of cash into the already strong cash flow of Spain’s largest fossil fuel company.

The company led by Josu Jon Imaz frames the sale as part of the “refocusing” of its exploration and production portfolio through “the rotation of assets to concentrate and consolidate in key areas, preferably in countries of the ‘OECD’. [el club de los países ricos]–, with a particular emphasis on the United States. Repsol expects this transaction – subject to customary closing conditions in this type of transaction, including obtaining regulatory approvals – to be completed by mid-October.

Despite its exit from exploration and production activities in Canada, the Spanish oil company will maintain two links with the North American country: its liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in St. John and its trade.

That of Canada is not the only exit undertaken by the Spanish oil company in recent times, in which it is gradually abandoning geographical areas that it considers “non-strategic”: Vietnam, Malaysia, Papua New -Guinea, Australia, Greece, Morocco, Iraq, Bulgaria, Ecuador and Russia. It thus went from 25 countries to only 14. At the same time, Repsol has redoubled its commitment in the United States and Brazil. Even after the sale of Canadian assets, the company estimates that its discoveries of new wells over the past three years – “particularly in the United States and Mexico” – will allow it to “maintain current production levels until the end of the decade.

This exceptional new product is in addition to the sale of 25% of its renewable energy subsidiary to the French insurance company Crédit Agricole and the Swiss fund Energy Infrastructure Partners (EIP) for 905 million and, above all, 25% of its global activity of crude oil. and gas to the GIE fund for 4.850 million. Its management, however, resisted making major investments with the money raised through these operations. Imaz, in fact, boasted in recent meetings with analysts that he was the “most boring CEO” in the sector. Caution is required: even if Repsol remains open to more purchases, particularly in renewable energies, it seems to have learned the lesson of the last decade, when it embarked on major purchases like that of the company Canadian oil company Talisman Energy. They did not give the expected performance. And this still remains in the memories of Méndez Álvaro.

Follow all the information Economy And Business In Facebook And Twitteror in our weekly newsletter