Noble Energy sells off Marcellus gas assets for $1.2 billion

Noble Energy has struck a deal to sell off its assets in the natural gas-rich Marcellus Basin in the northeastern United States for $1.2 billion.

It didn’t name the buyer in its statement on Tuesday. The Houston company said $100 million of the $1.2 billion price tag will come from three equal contingent payments that depend on regional natural gas prices rising above a certain level over the next few years. The other $1.1 billion is cash.

Noble said it’s selling assets that produce 415 million cubic feet of natural gas equivalent a day across 385,000 acres in northern West Virginia and southern Pennsylvania. About 88 percent of that production is gas, rather than oil or liquids. It had some proved reserves of 1.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas equivalent.

The Marcellus Shale is still the biggest shale gas play in the nation, and it soaked up the lion’s share of the oil industry’s early investments in shale gas. When natural gas prices tanked half a decade ago, shale drillers began looking for unconventional oil in places like the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas, and another boom began.
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