HollyFrontier acquires Petro-Canada Lubricants business from Suncor Energy

HollyFrontier Corporation (HFC) announced the completion of the acquisition of Suncor Energy’s Petro-Canada Lubricants business (PCLI) for $1.125 billion. The transaction closed on February 1, 2017. 

The acquisition included PCLI’s production and manufacturing centre, long-term feedstock supply and product marketing arrangements, and the global marketing and distribution assets held by PCLI including its global offices. Under the terms of the transaction, HFC will continue to operate the lubricants business under the Petro-Canada trademark. 

HFC is an independent petroleum refiner in the United States with operations throughout the mid-continent, southwestern and Rocky Mountain regions. 

Suncor Energy is a Canadian integrated energy company based in Calgary, specializing in the production of synthetic crude from oil sands. The Petro-Canada Lubricants plant, located in Mississauga, Ont., is the largest producer of base oils in Canada. 

HFC was represented in-house by Vice President and General Counsel Denise McWatters, and externally by Borden Ladner Gervais LLP (BLG) and Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP. The BLG team was led by James Elder and Neil Hazan and included Derek Powers, Kenza Bensaid (corporate), Steve Suarez, Richard Eisenbraun and Pam Cross (tax), Subrata Bhattacharjee and Greg McLean (competition & Investment Canada Act), Clifford Hart, Maddie Axelrod and James Fu (labour & employment), Andrew Harrison (pensions), Catherine Bray, Brennan Carroll and Andrew Guerrisi (real estate), Rick Coburn and Marie Claude Bellemare (environmental), Christine Pallotta (IP) and Howard Silverman (financial services). The Morgan Lewis team was led by Benjamin Wills and Conor Larkin. 

Suncor Energy was represented in-house by Kristopher Smith, Executive Vice President, Downstream; Thomas Kehler, Vice President, Legal Affairs – Operations; Joe Vetrone, Vice President, Integration & Planning – Refining & Marketing; and George Fraser, Director, Legal Affairs – Refining & Marketing. Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP advised Suncor Energy externally with a team led by Peter Keohane that included Chris Harris, David Kruse, Evan Herbert, Christine Yick, Kevin Kerr, Garrett Morin, Ky Kvisle, Alana McElhinney, Sheizana Murji and Ian Clarke (corporate/oil & gas); Tony Prenol and Sarah O’Grady (IP); Jason Gudofsky and Joshua Krane (competition & antitrust) Jeremy Forgie and Sean Maxwell (pensions); Joseph Grignano and Patrick Gordon (real estate) Christine Ing, Troy Lehman, David Feldman and Anatoly Zhitnik (IT); Jonathan Kahn and Doug Taylor (environmental); Holly Reid, Birch Miller and de Lobe Lederman (employment & labour); Dufferin Harper, Michael Dixon and Mario Pedro (litigation); Robert Kopstein, Zvi Halpern and Daniel Jankovic (tax) and Andrew Kolody (financial services).