Shell: Squeezing oil from stone

Shell is offering $6.8bn, or C$40 a share, to buy the remaining 22% of Shell Canada which it doesn’t already own. There is clear industrial logic to this deal. Shell wants to boost its production of oil from unconventional sources to 10% -15% of production by 2015, up from around 5% today, and Shell Canada has a majority stake in a large oil sands business, the Athabasca oil sands project in northern Alberta. No doubt Shell also hopes that with full control, it will be able to get a grip on b...