Devon sells non-core Eagle Ford assets

Penn Virginia bought 79.3 square kilometres of Eagle Ford acreage from Devon Energy for USD 205 million, the company announced on Monday.

The deal, which includes midstream assets worth USD 20 million, will increase Penn Virginia’s net production by some 30%, or 3,000 boepd, the company added in a statement.

“Our operations team knows this area extremely well as the Devon acreage is contiguous to our existing acreage position,” said John A. Brooks, Penn Virginia’s interim principal executive officer and chief operating officer. “We will utilise our technical capabilities to optimise production and reduce operating and administrative costs per BOE on the acquired assets, while significantly increasing the size and scale of our company.”

Also Monday, Devon Energy said in a separate statement that it had recently sold assets producing an average of 4,000 boepd for a total of USD 340 million. Its press release mentioned the the Lavaca County acreage purchased by Penn Virginia, but did not specify the latter or any other buyers.

“These highly accretive asset sales are an important step in executing on our USD 1 billion divestiture programme over the next year,” said Dave Hager, president and CEO of Devon Energy. “The divestiture proceeds will further strengthen our investment-grade financial position and provide us additional flexibility to build operational momentum across our top-tier US resource plays.”