TotalEnergies has struck a deal potentially worth more than $4.5 billion to sell its oil sands assets in Canada to Suncor Energy, although ConocoPhillips could stymie part of the transaction if it exercises pre-emption rights.

Last year, it became clear these assets in Alberta were non-core to the Frenh supermajor and, after rejecting some initial offers, it decided to spin-off a new listed company that would hold its stakes in the Fort Hills and Surmont complexes.

However, today TotalEnergies announced it had subsequently received several unsolicited offers among which was a proposal that “materialised over the last month” from Suncor to buy all the shares of TotalEnergies EP Canada Ltd.