The Financial Post reports in its Tuesday edition that Canada's oil patch is barrelling toward its biggest year of deal making in a decade, fuelled by war-inflated crude prices and Prime Minister Mark Carney's support for new pipelines. The Post's James Rose writes that in a recent research note, analysts at BMO Capital Markets said the uptick in mergers and acquisitions reinforces a theme they've highlighted for years: "Scale continues to matter. The improvements with the federal government in terms of regulation, egress and overall tone has seemingly sparked interest from a number of operators, both domestic and international," the brokerage said. BMO's analysts believe more consolidation is to come. They suggest companies including Whitecap Resources, Spartan Delta, Kelt Exploration, Surge and Obsidian are leading candidates. Whitecap, with a market cap of $20-billion, is just the right size for a supermajor looking for exposure to Canadian energy. "For a buyer seeking immediate scale, condensate growth, free cash flow, and 40-plus years of inventory in one of Canada's premier resource plays, Whitecap checks nearly every box we would expect to see in a future large-cap acquisition candidate," the analysts say.