Compas Poll / Survey

By a 4:1 margin, CEOs and business leaders on the COMPAS business panel call for a careful regulatory review of the Abu Dhabi National Energy Company acquisition of PrimeWest Energy Trust because of the strategic resources involved. From their verbatim comments, many panelists are strongly concerned about letting the acquisition go through. Yet opinion is not unanimous.

Two related rationales elicit the most support for blocking the purchase—that “the Abu Dhabi state-owned company would have far too much of a say in deciding which countries our oil would be sold to” and “energy is too important to our national economy to allow a foreign state-owned company to buy such a significant stake.” From their verbatim responses, it is evident that panelists are concerned about foreign states owning Canadian assets, especially if strategic.

Panelists are not persuaded that it is important to consider blocking the sale because of a heightened risk of terrorists targeting Canadian petroleum or petroleum-transportation assets.These are the key findings from the current web-survey of the panel of CEOs and business leaders undertaken for the Financial Post under sponsorship of BDO Dunwoody LLP.