According to a report by Reuters, Occidental Petroleum (OXY -0.97%) is in talks to sell its oil and gas fields in Ghana for more than $500 million. The prospective buyer is Boru Energy, an energy company backed by private equity giant Carlyle Group (CG) and led by former Tullow Oil CEO Aidan Heavey.
Occidental Petroleum currently owns a 24% interest in the Jubilee field and a 17% interest in the TEN field in offshore Ghana. Tullow Oil operates both assets, making Boru's interest an intriguing twist. Heavey oversaw the development of Jubilee, which started production in 2010. Jubilee yielded 83,600 barrels of oil equivalent per day (BOE/D) last year, while TEN's output averaged 48,700 BOE/D.
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Occidental Petroleum acquired these assets as part of its $55 billion purchase of Anadarko Petroleum in 2019. It had initially agreed to sell them to French energy giant Total (TTE -0.44%) for $8.8 billion as part of a package deal that included all of Anadarko's African assets. But a portion of that deal fell through because Algeria's government blocked the sale of Occidental's assets in that country to Total. The Ghana sale was contingent on closing the Algeria deal.
While Occidental chose to hold its Algerian assets, it put its properties in Ghana back on the market. It appears to have finally found a buyer. If this deal closes, it will put Occidental one step closer to achieving its goal of selling $2 billion to $3 billion of assets this year to repay debt. That would help the company lift more of the weight that has been holding down its stock price since the Anadarko deal.
