(Reuters) -Exxon Mobil Corp on Thursday mentioned it signed a deal to promote North Texas pure fuel properties to producer BKV Corp for $750 million, as a part of a wider transfer to shed undesirable belongings.
Exxon, the highest U.S. oil producer, set a purpose three years in the past to promote by final December $15 billion in belongings to pay down debt and deal with decrease value oil manufacturing. Nevertheless it has achieved about half its purpose as gross sales stalled throughout the pandemic.
This 12 months’s rebound in oil and fuel costs has introduced renewed curiosity in its properties, Senior Vice President Neil Chapman instructed analysts in March.
North Texas belongings gross sales embody extra funds based mostly on future fuel costs, permitting the corporate to revenue from rising gasoline prices. The deal is predicted to shut by June 30.
“We’re targeted on delivering essentially the most aggressive returns to our shareholders by growing alternatives with the bottom value of provide,” mentioned Liam Mallon, president of Exxon Mobil Upstream Firm.
Denver-based BKV is majority owned by Thai vitality agency Banpu PCL and is the biggest pure fuel producer within the Barnett Shale, an space of north Texas the place the primary shale wells have been efficiently drilled.
Exxon is providing belongings in Asia, Africa and Europe because it as focuses on Guyana, offshore Brazil and the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico. It’s advertising belongings in Iraq, Chad, Nigeria, Canada, and in Arkansas and Ohio.
The corporate, which suffered a historic $22.4 billion loss in 2020, has used this 12 months’s skyhigh oil costs to pay down debt and enhance payouts to shareholders.
Exxon mentioned it had eliminated the Barnett Shale belongings operated by its subsidiaries XTO Vitality Inc and Barnett Gathering LLC from its growth plan in 2020.
Final 12 months, it took in $2.6 billion from asset gross sales, up from $1 billion in 2020.
Reporting by Ruhi Soni in Bengaluru; Modifying by Maju Samuel, Bernard Orr
