Shell pockets £1.26bn for US shale gas fields
ROYAL Dutch Shell yesterday said it had sold two US shale gas assets in exchange for $2.1bn (£1.26bn) and additional acreage, as the oil and gas major sought to restructure its North American portfolio.
FTSE 100-listed Shell has sold its Haynesville asset in Louisiana for $1.2bn to Vine Oil and Gas, a recently formed exploration and production company headquartered in Dallas, Texas and Blackstone Energy Partners, an affiliate of private equity firm Blackstone.
The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2014. Evercore and Kirkland & Ellis LLP advised Blackstone and Vine on the deal.
In a separate agreement, Shell has sold its Pinedale asset in Wyoming to Ultra Petroleum, in return for $925m and 155,000 net acres in the Marcellus and Utica shale areas in Pennsylvania.
“We continue to restructure and focus our North America shale oil and gas portfolio to deliver the most value in the longer term,” said Marvin Odum, Shell’s upstream Americas director.
“With this announcement we are adding highly attractive exploration acreage, where we have impressive well results in the Utica, and divesting our more mature, Pinedale and Haynesville dry gas positions.”