The American oil company ConocoPhillips has finalized the April 2017 San Juan Basin assets sale agreement with Hilcorp Energy. The total amount of the divestment reaches US$3bn of which US$2.7bn in cash and a contingent payment of US$300m.
The company is under pressure to cut its US$20bn debt (as of March 2017) and goes forward with its divestment plan in order to improve its balance sheet and cash margins. In order to assess the impact of this divestment program, the company published a presentation which takes into account the latest results, including the sale of the Canadian assets sale and the San Juan Basin transaction.
The San Juan Basin is a geological structural basin located in the neighbourhood of the Four Corners region of the United States (Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico). The 2016 production of ConocoPhillips' San Juan Basin assets reached 124,000 boe/d of which 80% was natural gas. They had proved reserves amounting to 0.6 Gboe.