The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.
Bloomberg
ConocoPhillips, one of North America’s largest energy explorers, is considering a sale of operations worth more than $1 billion in the Permian Basin, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The company is working with an adviser to run an auction process for the assets, said the people, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorised to speak publicly. Potential suitors are being invited to the company’s data room to examine information, the people said.
A representative for Houston-based ConocoPhillips declined to comment. A sale would trim the company’s position in the Delaware region within the larger Permian Basin located in West Texas and New Mexico. It would come on the heels of ConocoPhillips becoming one of the basin’s biggest producers with its $9.5 billion acquisition of Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s Permian operations, which was completed in December.
ConocoPhillips raised its asset sale target 80% to between $4 billion and $5 billion by 2023 after the Shell deal was announced. It did that as part of its strategy of high-grading its asset base while also returning cash to shareholders. The extra proceeds “are expected to be sourced primarily from the Permian Basin,†it said at the time.
The first major sale came at the end of last month, when Maverick Natural Resources announced a deal to buy some ConocoPhillips assets in the Permian region’s Central Basin and Northwest Shelf for $440 million.