UNOCAL Shares With Canada Due to th

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Unocal <UCL.N> to restructure Canadian assets

NEW YORK, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Unocal Corp, the eleventh largest U.S. oil
company, said today it plans to restructure the ownership of its Canadian
assets through a joint venture or equity swap with a unnamed leading Canadian
exploration and production company. 

"You can expect an announcement very shortly," said Roger Beach, Unocal's
chief executive, at a PaineWebber energy conference in New York. 

Unocal's Canadian net production averages 12,000 barrels of oil a day. 
Beach said Unocal was seeing little impact on its cash flow from the Asian
financial crisis. In fact, a trend to substitute natural gas for oil in power
stations in Thailand will benefit Unocal, which has vast gas reserves offshore
Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar (Burma), he said. 

Currently, 20 percent of Thailand's electricity generation is oil-fired, he
said. 

"Even if electricity demand drops, natural gas demand will still rise," Beach
said.
He said Unocal was evaluating acquisition opportunities in Thailand as a
result of the economic crisis, especially in the electricity-generation
sector, as the International Monetary Fund is insisting on privatizations as
part of its loan conditions. 

Despite the cancellation of power projects in Asia as a result of the crisis,
Beach said Unocal was not aware that any governments were seeking to cancel
any Unocal contracts.    Unocal's oil and liquefied natural gas contracts are
denominated in hard currency, while many of its costs are in local currency,
he said. 

Beach said Unocal was prepared to sacrifice some immediate financial gains for
longer-term objectives. 

"That means investing in opportunities that will not always show up in the
income statement of the next quarter," he said. 

13:37 02-10-98