Just announced sale of U.K. North Sea interests following this weeks announcement of sale of Timor Sea Greater Sunrise interests. Great exit opportunities or do we need the money or both? Our COP world just keeps shrinking.
Bumped from @YAYlYwu-3kpa for info and sad truth about COP.
If you can’t properly abbreviate “ANWR” you’ve proven yourself an uneducated id--t. Mark these words: April 27, 2019: “The Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) will never produce a drop of oil...”
Application of new drilling techniques in Alaska can easy replace and increase decreasing volumes in Alaska. ANWAR development will be coming online and additional new discoveries development will continue to support and increase production.
Permian may be a source of additional asset sale proceeds. We have shut down the unconventional Delaware activity following multi-year non-commercial results . The remaining conventional interests are old with no significant commercial development potential. May be time to cash out. Farm-out remaining Delaware unconventional and sell-off conventional holdings to smaller local independents.
Flee this dying industry!
I would think the near-term abandonment and environmental restoration obligations of the Prudhoe interests would be staggering.
Alyeska pipeline has been is service since 1977 and may be starving for volumes to cover operating and maintenance costs. During 1988, Alyeska average daily throughput was approximately 2.033 million BOPD. Current throughput is approximately 530,000 BOPD, 25 percent of the 1988 throughput. Production from Prudhoe Bay is approximately 230,000 BOPD w/ smaller fields making up the remaining North Slope daily volumes. During 1988, Prudhoe Bay production averaged approximately 1.6 million BOPD.
Our only “Great” asset is Alaska. Might have a few JV’s around the globe that are pretty strong, but my guess would be to look at companies with no assets in Alaska, or those who have a big position. Alaska is the silver lining of COP and will attract many buyers.
COP was not the operator of U.K. assets only a along for risks and high development costs. Timor sale followed Shell's exit with Government demands increasing. COP was luck to get out and get paid for it. As assets mature profit margin goes down while activity, risk, and cost go up to continue production with much of remaining reserves never to be produced. So speculate all you want but asset disposition is not always bad or an omen.
Odds are a prospective buyer has made it clear they only want certain assets. The rest get sold ahead of time. Once CoP is nice and bite-sized, it’ll be absorbed or taken over. Ask anybody at Anadarko how it works.
More likely - shrink to sell/be acquired
Shale will require scale to bring down the lifting costs and COP will not compete as it does not have the scale or the infrastructure to get the oil&gas to market. Downside of being a pure E&P is that you have no mid stream or downstream to leverage. Where is P66 when you need them???
The big players will lock out players like COP who do not own and operate their own pipelines - which just puts up lifting costs.
Shrink to grow?
Strange that a share buy back of $3bn was announced just before the UK sale of $3bn!! You can only sell your assets once and then your left with L48.
The cupboard is nearly bare . West Australia next then the remains of Canada or Norway. That should bring the market cap down to a more manageable size for the OXY or the other big players. As with Jim Mulva , the top executive will cash in an walk out.
ConocoPhillips is not a super major anymore but thankfully it still has the HQ of a super major which equals synergies at the time it gets bought by someone else.
Sadly for employees the game is nearly over for ConocoPhillips .