(Adds more detail, PKN comment)
WARSAW, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Poland's top refiner, the state-controlled PKN Orlen, said on Tuesday it has launched takeover bids for Canada's Kicking Horse Energy and Nasdaq-listed FX Energy, worth a total of over $300 million.
PKN currently buys most of its oil from neighbouring Russia and these deals would expand its own exploration and production activities.
It already runs one such upstream business in Canada after it bought TriOil Resources in 2013 and has said it wants to seize potential takeovers opportunities as low oil prices force rivals to sell assets.
According to PKN, valued at 27.7 billion zlotys ($7.5 billion) on the Warsaw bourse, the takeovers will raise its deposit base by 38 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe), or 76 percent, to 88 million boe.
"In line with our strategy in the upstream segment we're aiming at achieving a production potential of 6 million boe a year in 2017," PKN Chief executive Jacek Krawiec said in a statement.
PKN has offered Kicking Horse's shareholders 4.75 Canadian dollars for each share in an all-cash deal, valuing the firm's equity at 293 million Canadian dollars ($225 million), and putting the enterprise value at C$ 356 million.
It also offered FX Energy shareholders $1.15 in cash for each common share and $25 for each preffered share, valuing the firm's equity at $83 million. PKN said it it will annouce a tender offer for FX Energy by Oct. 23.
Kicking Horse, an oil and gas explorer, produces around 4,000 boe a day from its Alberta-based unit. Its market value on Canada's TSX Venture Exchange stands at C$199 million.
Besides U.S. producing assets in Montana and Nevada, FX Energy has concessions around Poland, partly co-owned with Poland's state-controlled gas group PGNiG. Its curret market value equals $59 million.
PKN, which runs a refining and gas-station business in Poland, Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Germany, has not yet produced oil at home. It has been trying to build a foothold in shale gas but its efforts have so far come to naught.
The group plans to delist both takeover targets and finalise the deals in the first quarter of 2016. According to PKN, they do not alter its dividend policy. ($1 = 1.3029 Canadian dollars) ($1 = 3.7130 zlotys) (Reporting by Marcin Goettig and Adrian Krajewski; Editing by Wiktor Szary)