Unit Corp looks to sell Anadarko, Gulf Coast gas assets for $1 bln - sources
20/01/2022 14:18
By Shariq Khan
Jan 20 (Reuters) - Unit Corp UNTC.PK , one of the top U.S.
natural gas producers, has hired an investment bank for a sale
of its oil & gas producing assets in the Anadarko and Gulf Coast
basins that could fetch around $1 billion, sources told Reuters
on Thursday.
Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Unit, which filed for bankruptcy in
May 2020 at the height of a slump in oil prices, has reached out
to interested parties for a divestiture of its upstream
subsidiary Unit Petroleum Co, the sources said.
The sources, who requested anonymity because the matter is
confidential, cautioned that no sale agreement had been reached
and Unit could still scrap the plan.
Unit did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The planned sale includes land spanning about 270,000 net
acres in the Anadarko basin of Texas and Oklahoma and around
24,000 net acres in the U.S. Gulf Coast along the Texas
coastline, according to marketing documents seen by Reuters.
The assets are estimated to have a total output of around
136 million cubic feet per day of equivalent gas in April, the
month when any potential sale would be effective on Unit's
books, according to the documents. Bids for the assets are due
in March, the documents showed.
Unit also owns contract drilling and natural gas gathering
subsidiaries. Those businesses are not part of the proposed
sale.
The company's planned sale of its upstream business would be
the latest instance of a producer hoping to attract strong
offers after months-long rally in both crude oil and natural gas
prices.
Chesapeake Energy Corp CHK.O is in advanced talks to buy
Chief Oil & Gas for around $2.4 billion, Reuters reported on
Wednesday. Privately held Alta Resources was sold in July to EQT
Corp EQT.N for $2.9 billion, and Southwestern Energy Co
SWN.N acquired Indigo Natural Resources in September and GEP
Haynesville in December.
(Reporting by Shariq Khan in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb
Chakrabarty)
((Shariq.Khan@thomsonreuters.com; Twitter: @shariqrtrs;))