Athabasca Oil Corp. won’t sell any of its assets in Canada’s Duvernay region until oil prices stabilize.
“You don’t put assets up for sale in a downturn,” Matthew Taylor, a spokesman for the Calgary-based company, said in an interview Friday. “We’re going to wait for the conditions and prices to stabilize.”
Athabasca Oil has been seeking partners to help drill on its holdings in northwest Alberta’s Duvernay shale play. Taylor declined to comment on the status of talks with potential partners.
The company sold its holdings in Alberta’s Dover region last year, and said it would use the proceeds to help develop its Duvernay assets.
Athabasca’s efforts to find joint venture partners will be delayed until late this year or early 2016, RBC Dominion Securities Inc. analyst Mark Friesen wrote in a note to clients Thursday.
The shares fell 0.5 percent to C$1.98 at the close in Toronto and have lost 74 percent over the past year.