The $1.65/sh may be adjusted to lower price after Petrobank unloaded this week May River oilsand total reservs (715 millions bbl or $3.8 billion 8% NPV) for $225 million or $0.31/bbl.

Connacher has 1300 million bbl total reserves which hopefully increase this month to 1500 million bbl.

The Open season has officially begun on Connacher Oil and Gas Ltd., Rebecca Penty reports today at the Calgary Herald. Analysts, frustrated at the firm’s inability to secure a joint venture partner for its Great Divide oil sands property and smarting from a spurned (and unsolicited) takeover offer late last year, now view the company as ripe for picking, Penty writes.

Long-time chief executive Dick Gusella joined three other Connacher executives on the sidelines this week, leaving the company abruptly and leading to widespread speculation that a sale is in the offing. The likelihood that the entire firm is headed for the auction market has “increased substantially,” Jeff Martin and Tyler Reardon at Peters & Co. told clients yesterday.

They value the company at between $1 and $1.65 per share at an implied discount rate of 12 per cent, due to its debt load and a higher cost of capital – not a bargain on par with distressed Opti Canada Inc., who you’ll remember was picked up by Cnooc Ltd. for a tidy $2 billion and change last year, but still an attractive prospect for a bigger player. Connacher “requires significantly less capital to improve production compared to Opti, but its main detriment has been its high interest costs, which could be improved if a larger entity were to acquire the assets,” Martin and Reardon said in a note last night.

A takeover is the best outcome for current shareholders, RBC Dominion Securities analysts Mark Friesen and Sam Roach told clients. “… [I]nvestors should prefer the quick low-risk conclusion of a corporate transaction vs. a prolonged period of uncertainty through a combination of joint venture and farm-out transactions and ultimately bearing the risks of developing Connacher’s assets,” they wrote in a note last night.

Gusella, who had been with the company for 11 years, hasn’t said much publicly since relinquishing his jobs as chairman, CEO, president and interim COO yesterday. In an interview last fall, however, the oil patch veteran betrayed no sign of the coming turmoil. Instead, he touted Connacher’s proved and probable reserves as a lure for a joint venture partner. “Most guys have arm-waving resources that may never become reserves,” he told me. “There’s a big difference, and it’s caught peoples’ attention, especially those that aren’t necessarily in the space at this point in time.”