Encana Corp, Canada's largest natural gas company, said on Wednesday it is buying producing assets in the Eagle Ford shale field in Texas from Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold for $3.1 billion, nearly doubling its oil output and boosting its shares by as much as 6.2 percent.The purchase adds another core region to the five shale fields Encana is concentrating spending on as it restructures its operations away from low-value natural gas to concentrate on valuable crude and natural gas liquids."Gaining a position in a world class, oil-rich resource play like the Eagle Ford accelerates the transition of our portfolio and underscores our investment focus on high margin assets" Encana Chief Executive Doug Suttles, said in a statement.Encana shares were up C$1.14 to C$25.70 by early afternoon on the Toronto Stock Exchange after earlier touching C$26.08.
Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. (FCX) is an international mining company. Shares of FCX traded higher by 0.49% or $0.165/share to $34.00. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $26.37 and as high as $38.09. On average, 10338500 shares of FCX exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 4273870.
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