Sumitomo Corp. has quit the shale oil business in the U.S. by selling its stake in a project in the Eagle Ford during last quarter of 2020, a company spokesman said on Feb. 4.

“We will no longer invest in U.S. unconventional oil and gas projects,” Sumitomo CFO Masaru Shiomi told a news conference while adding that the Japanese trading house plans to maintain its stake in upstream oil projects in the North Sea and keep investing in gas projects.

Sumitomo bought a 100% stake in 2018 in a field in the Eagle Ford formation of South Texas that was set to have peak output of 3,000 boe/d.

It purchased the stake despite hefty impairment losses on its previous U.S. shale gas and oil assets in 2014-15 when slumping prices forced international energy companies and Japanese trading houses to write-down their assets.

Sumitomo decided to sell the stake last year, the company’s last shale gas and oil asset, the spokesman said, without giving a reason or a sum for the deal. The deal was first reported by the Nikkei business daily earlier on Feb. 4.

Previously, Sumitomo sold its entire stake in a Marcellus shale gas project in the U.S. for an undisclosed sum in 2020.

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