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Warburg Pincus reportedly

puts RimRock up for sale

NORTH DAKOTA RIMROCK Oil & Gas has reportedly been put acreage. RimRock now owns assets across 29,500
up for sale by its owner, private equity firm War- net acres (119 square km) in North Dakota’s
burg Pincus. According to three sources familiar Bakken play.
with the matter who were cited by Reuters, the RimRock is not the only oil and gas company
private equity firm is seeking to benefit from that Warburg has sought to offload, though it has
the increase in commodity prices to offload the had more success with certain other sales to date.
company. In January, it sold Texas-based gas pipeline oper-
Warburg has reportedly hired an investment ator Navitas Midstream, which owns a network
bank for the sale of RimRock, but the sources of close to 1,750 miles (2,816 km) of gas-gath-
have indicated that there is no guarantee a sale ering pipelines, to Enterprise Products Partners
would happen. Warburg could choose to retain for $3.25bn.
the company, they said. One month earlier, Warburg sold Permian
This marks the second time in a little more Basin-focused oil and gas producer Chisholm
than a year that Warburg has attempted to Energy to Earthstone Energy in a $604mn cash-
offload the Bakken-focused producer. War- and-stock deal. The agreement included $340mn
burg did not succeed in finding a buyer at its in cash at closing, $70mn of deferred cash over
desired valuation of $500mn for the company 12 months after closing and 19.4mn shares of
last year. Earthstone’s Class A common stock valued at
With oil and gas prices rising, however, Rim- $194mn.
Rock is now projected to achieve a valuation in A number of other US private equity com-
the high hundreds of millions of dollars, accord- panies have also taken advantage of rising com-
ing to Reuters’ sources. modity prices over the past year to sell oil and gas
Warburg first invested in RimRock in 2016, companies for higher amounts than they would
committing about $500mn to acquire oil and gas have been able to fetch previously.™

ConocoPhillips reportedly weighs

sale of certain Eagle Ford assets

US CONOCOPHILLIPS is reportedly seeking to company’s buying spree in the Permian over the
sell some of its Eagle Ford shale assets in Texas. past 18 months saw it spend around $23bn. It
Two sources familiar with the matter told Reu- acquired Permian-focused Concho Resources
ters that the company was working with an for $13bn in 2020 and then spent $9.5bn last year
adviser to sell properties worth about $100mn as to purchase Shell’s acreage in the basin.
it steps up asset sales in an effort to benefit from In order to cover the expenditure, in Sep-
higher energy prices. tember ConocoPhillips raised its target for asset
The Eagle Ford assets for sale are thought sales to $4-5bn by the end of 2023, up from its
to include roughly 230 drilling locations in the earlier target of $2-5bn. The company has since
play, which produced about 2,304 barrels of oil then kicked off sales of some of its assets in the
equivalent per day (boepd) in the fourth quar- Permian and Anadarko basins. (See NorthAmOil
ter of 2021, according to a marketing document Week 12)
cited by Reuters. The company’s total Eagle Ford ConocoPhillips’ operated Anadarko Basin
production in the fourth quarter was around assets comprise 261,200 net acres (1,057 square
183,000 boepd. It owns around 200,000 net km) and produce about 8,000 boepd. Its non-op-
leasehold and mineral acres (809 square km) erated assets include more than 17,700 net acres
in the Eagle Ford, primarily in Texas’ DeWitt, (72 square km). Royalty interests in the Ana-
Karnes and Live Oak counties. darko Basin’s SCOOP and STACK plays are also
ConocoPhillips is attempting to raise cash by up for sale.
selling non-core assets after a string of purchases Sales in the Anadarko and Permian basins
elevated it to become the top producer by volume could raise more than $1bn for the company,
in the Permian Basin, the US’ largest oilfield. The with stronger energy prices boosting proceeds.™

Week 15 14•April•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P7