Kerr-McGee Corp, the US oil and gas company that ended a proxy battle with billionaire Carl Icahn in April, agreed to sell its North Sea energy assets for US$3.5 billion to reduce debt and increase shareholder returns.
Kerr-McGee sold North Sea assets including 10 fields in production to AP Moeller-Maersk A/S, the world's largest container-shipping company, for US$2.95 billion, the Oklahoma City-based company said yesterday in a statement on PR Newswire. The company also sold holdings in four fields to Centrica Plc, the UK's largest energy supplier, for about US$566 million.
Kerr-McGee chief executive Luke Corbett in April agreed to sell less profitable units and buy back shares to boost the stock price and end a proxy fight with Icahn and a group of investors that bought 7.7 percent of the company. Kerr-McGee, which got a fifth of its oil output from the fields sold, plans to use all the proceeds from the sales to cut debt.
"Divestiture of the North Sea assets will facilitate the company's plan to spend a reduced amount of capital while achieving a higher per-share production growth rate," Kerr-McGee said in the statement.
The company's UK holdings produced about 77,700 barrels of oil equivalent daily in the second quarter. The assets being sold include proven reserves of approximately 231 million barrels of oil equivalent as of the end of June.
JP Morgan Chase & Co and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc advised Kerr-McGee. Citigroup Inc advised Maersk.
Kerr-McGee will get about US$3.1 billion in cash after tax from the sales, which are scheduled to be completed in the fourth quarter, it said.
The company, which claims to have drilled the world's first commercial oil well out of sight of land in 1947, had its credit ratings cut to junk from investment grade after announcing on April 14 that it would buy back US$4 billion in stock at a 15 percent markup.
The buyback helped swell the company's debt to US$7 billion.
Icahn and investor Barry Rosenstein, who were campaigning for seats on the company's board, ended their fight after the buyback.
Kerr-McGee is also trying to sell a chemicals plant and fields in the Gulf of Mexico.
Maersk expects the acquisition to have a "modest, but positive" effect on its results for this year, based on current oil prices, the company said in a separate statement to the Copenhagen Exchange.
"This will strengthen the company both in terms of earnings, but also strategically," Stig Frederiksen, an analyst at HSH Gudme in Copenhagen, said regarding Maersk.
Maersk on Friday secured control of 95.6 percent of Royal P&O Nedlloyd NV allowing it to complete its 2.3 billion-euro (US$2.8 billion) takeover of the Rotterdam-based company.
Centrica will add about 1.1 billion thermal units of gas, enough to meet 2 percent of Centrica's gas customer demand, by acquiring from Kerr-McGee the interests in the Andrew, Brae, Buckland and Skene fields, Centrica said yesterday in another statement. The assets also increase Centrica's holdings by 11 million barrels of oil.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS