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ConocoPhillips Co. (NYSE: COP) said June 29 it has entered an agreement to sell its Barnett Shale assets for $305 million—roughly a third of the assets’ book value—as the Houston-based company continues to trim noncore assets.
The sale, to an affiliate of natural gas-focused Miller Thomson & Partners LLC, is a follow-through to ConocoPhillips’ three-year goal to divest between $5 billion to $8 billion of noncore assets by 2018.
However, with the $13.3 billion sale of ConocoPhillips’ Canadian oil sand assets and its San Juan divestiture for up to $3 billion earlier this year, the company’s total announced divestitures so far in 2017 is well over $16 billion.
ConocoPhillips is “pretty agnostic” in its portfolio, Ryan M. Lance, the company’s chairman and CEO, said at the Sanford C. Bernstein Strategic Decision Conference on June 1.
“If we see assets that are not competitive for capital and we can find a way to monetize them that it captures our value-neutral sales price so it creates—or it meets or exceeds our hold price, absolutely. We've been willing to go sell those assets. But I'd say big—we don't envision big asset sales programs on the portfolio going forward, but we're constantly looking at it every year to make sure that things are competitive,” Lance said at the conference.
ConocoPhillips’ Barnett assets net book value was about $900 million as of May 31 and the company anticipates recording a non-cash impairment on the assets in second-quarter 2017.
For full-year 2016, the Barnett position averaged production of 11,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d), comprised of about 55% natural gas and 45% NGL. Year-end 2016 proved reserves were about 50 million boe.
Assuming the proved developed producing value of 11,000 boe/d, Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. (TPH) said the valuation was "good" at about $4,621 per thousand cubic feet equivalent per day.
The company’s unadjusted deal price includes $27,727 per flowing boe, according to Baird Equity Research.
Overall, though, the transaction value is “blocking and tackling relative to the recent Canada and San Juan divestments, but positive to see incremental progress on divesting noncore gassy assets and solid valuation,” TPH said in a June 29 report.
Additionally, TPH said the Barnett divestiture’s impact to ConocoPhillips’ full-year 2017 production is minimal at an expected 5,000 boe/d.
ConocoPhillips said it expects the Barnett sale, which is subject to specific conditions precedent being satisfied including regulatory approval, to close in third-quarter 2017.
Based in Lafayette, La., Miller Thomson & Partners acquires and develops producing natural gas properties and related midstream assets to market the natural gas to large-scale end users along the U.S. Gulf Coast and in Mexico, according to the company’s website.
Emily Patsy can be reached at epatsy@hartenergy.com.
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