Adds bylines and bullets; changes headline; rewrites lede; adds analyst comments in paragraph 5-6; adds background throughout

By Amanda Stephenson and Tanay Dhumal

Oct 27 (Reuters) - Oil sands company Cenovus Energy CVE.TO, CVE.N has struck a deal with rival Strathcona Resources SCR.TO that will see the smaller company vote its shares in favour of Cenovus' bid for MEG Energy MEG.TO, ending the bitter takeover fight that has been the talk of the Canadian oilpatch for months.

Cenovus said Monday it has entered into a voting support agreement with Calgary-based Strathcona, which owns 14.2% of MEG and had previously been indicating it would vote against Cenovus' offer for what is Canada's last pure-play oil sands company.

In exchange, Strathcona will purchase from Cenovus its Vawn thermal oil project in Saskatchewan as well as certain undeveloped lands in Saskatchewan and Alberta for C$75 million in cash at closing, and additional contingent payments of up to $75 million.

Cenovus also sweetened its offer for MEG to C$30 a share, a 1.5% bump from its prior bid value at time of offer.

The deal should boost Cenovus' support for its MEG transaction well over the two-thirds voting threshold required for shareholder approval at an Oct. 30 meeting, said ATB Capital analyst Patrick O'Rourke in a note to clients.

With MEG's largest shareholder and Cenovus' former bidding rival Strathcona now on board, the Cenovus-MEG merger "appears to be a done deal," said TD Cowen in a note.

MEG said Monday it now expects around 79% of votes to approve the improved transaction.

The fight for MEG has been full of twists and turns. Strathcona said on October 10 it was abandoning its own hostile bid for MEG, after Cenovus raised its bid to C$8.6 billion ($6.17 billion), including debt.

But even then, Cenovus' ability to garner the support it needed from MEG shareholders for its transaction remained in doubt, as some investors criticized the bid for being too low. Last week, Cenovus exercised its contractual right todelay the shareholder vote, in order to have more time to secure investor support for its offer.

MEG's Christina Lake oil sands project has become an attractive asset for its long reserve life, low operating costs and potential for production growth.It is one of the few large-scale expansion opportunities in Canada's oil sands, which are dominated by a small group of domestic players following the exit of most foreign companies over the past decade.

($1 = 1.4024 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Amanda Stephenson in Calgary and Tanay Dhumal in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore)

((Amanda.Stephenson@thomsonreuters.com))