Denbury Resources Inc. (NYSE: DNR) of Texas has reached a deal with ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP), buying up some 86,000 acres across Montana and North Dakota for $1.05 billion. The deal doesn’t include ConocoPhillips’ Bakken assets, which straddle Montana, North Dakota, and Saskatchewan territory in Canada.
Per MarketWatch, the areas included in the deal averaged net production of around 13,000 barrels of oil equivalent.
In September, Denbury earned $1.3 billion through the sale of its Bakken assets to Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM), and part of that money is going to finance the ConocoPhillips deal. The sale was part of the company’s efforts to focus on its CO2 injection fields.
The arrangement should increase Denbury’s average production for this year by a projected 7,700 barrels of oil equivalent per day. And ConocoPhillips now can declare total asset sales of some $12 billion for 2012, beating earlier estimates of $8-10 billion.
The deal will likely close in Q1.
The news sent Denbury’s stocks up 5.2 percent by close on Tuesday to $17.85, and it was up again 0.84% on Thursday morning. ConocoPhillips, meanwhile, saw its shares rise a comparatively modest 1 percent on Tuesday.
