ConocoPhillips offloads Indonesia assets in Asia-Pacific revamp

By Arunima Kumar

(Reuters) -U.S. oil and gas producer ConocoPhillips will quit Indonesia, selling its assets there for $1.355 billion to domestic energy company Medco Energi Internasional, and beef up in Australia as it continues to reshape.

The deals follow ConocoPhillips move to double down on U.S. shale with a $9.5 billion purchase of Royal Dutch Shell’s West Texas properties and a $13.3 billion deal for Concho Resources, and its exit from Canada’s oil sands, U.S. offshore and British North Sea fields.

The largest U.S. independent oil producer said on Wednesday it would sell its subsidiary that indirectly owns a 54% stake in the Indonesia Corridor Block Production Sharing Contract (PSC), which has two oil fields and seven gas fields, and a 35% shareholding interest in Transasia Pipeline Company.

At the same time, ConocoPhillips said it was exercising its right to buy up to an additional 10% stake in Australia Pacific LNG (APLNG) from Origin Energy for up to $1.645 billion, pre-empting an offer from private equity firm EIG Partners for that stake.

“The Asia Pacific region plays an important role in our diversification advantage as an independent E&P and these two transactions enhance that advantage by lowering our aggregate decline rate and diversifying our product mix,” ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance said in a statement.

ConocoPhillips’ subsidiary currently holds a 37.5% APLNG interest and would own as much as 47.5% upon the closing of the deal, expected in the first quarter of 2022.

The other partner in APLNG, China’s Sinopec, still has the right to match the offer for part of the 10% stake Origin is selling by Dec. 17, Origin said on Thursday.

ConocoPhillips’ full-year 2020 production from APLNG was about 115,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd). By comparison, the Indonesia assets it is selling produced about 50,000 boepd.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Scott Hanold said ConocoPhillips continues a “proactive A&D (acquisitions and divestitures) strategy to streamline and high grade its global portfolio.”

He added that overall the update is a slight positive for the company but a fairly neutral event for the shares.

The company’s shares were down 0.5% at $74.17.

MedcoEnergi said the Corridor PSC assets it is acquiring fit well with its Sumatra operations and would boost its oil and gas production to 155,000 boepd, up about 40% from its current production capacity.

(Reporting by Arunima Kumar in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Sonali Paul in Melbourne; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and David Gregorio)