ConocoPhillips Co. is reportedly considering the sale of assets worth more than $1 billion in the Permian Basin where the Houston-based independent recently made two megadeals within the past year.

On Feb. 11, Bloomberg reported the company was working with an adviser to run an auction process for the assets, citing with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The sale would trim the company’s position in the Delaware Basin, according to the report.

Last year, ConocoPhillips significantly bolstered its position in the Permian Basin through the purchase of Shell Plc’s Permian asset, located entirely within the Delaware sub-basin, for $9.5 billion in cash.

Prior to that, ConocoPhillips had acquired Concho Resources, which was one of the largest unconventional shale producers in the Permian Basin, in an all-stock transaction valued at around $13.3 billion. The Concho deal, which was also the largest U.S. upstream deal announced in 2020, closed in January 2021.

Pro forma for the Shell deal, ConocoPhillips held approximately 750,000 net acres in the Permian Basin. Its position in the basin includes 88,000 unconventional net acres in the Delaware Basin, 58,000 unconventional net acres in the Midland Basin and an additional 21,000 unconventional net acres in various other plays in the Northwest Shelf, according to a company fact sheet.

Upon announcement of the Shell deal, however, ConocoPhillips raised its asset sale target 80% to between $4 billion and $5 billion by 2023. The extra proceeds “are expected to be sourced primarily from the Permian Basin,” it said at the time, Bloomberg noted in its report.

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