Oasis Remains On Target With $283 Million Williston Divestitures

[Editor's note: This story was updated at 11:55 a.m. CST July 2.]

Oasis Petroleum Inc. (NYSE: OAS) agreed to sell a chunk of its noncore Williston Basin assets for $283 million on June 25 pushing the Houston-based company past the halfway point of its previously announced asset sales target.

In two separate agreements, Oasis will sell roughly 65,000 net acres consisting of Foreman Butte, which includes inventory that the company characterizes as fairway, and certain nonoperated acreage in the Indian Hills, Alger and South Nesson areas. BMO Capital Markets identified the buyers as Whiting Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: WLL) and Riverside Energy on July 2.

Net production from the divested assets is 4.4 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day (Mboe/d). Assuming $35,000 to $40,000 per flowing boe, analysts with Seaport Global Securities LLC estimate the undeveloped resource went for roughly $1,700 to $2,000 per acre.

“Although the price tag isn’t necessarily compelling, we believe the sale should be received favorably as it brings forward value for assets that investors likely ascribed little credit to and helps rein in leverage,” Seaport analysts said in a June 26 note.

In total, Oasis is targeting the sale of roughly 200,000 net noncore acres and 8-10 Mboe/d of production comprised of portions of its fairway and nonop assets in the Williston Basin. As a result, the company is hoping to achieve sales proceeds of $500 million by year-end 2018.

Oasis previously launched the divestiture program in late 2017 to help offset acquisition costs of its entry into the Delaware Basin following its $946 million purchase of Forge Energy LLC.

“With these transactions, we are pleased to report that Oasis has made significant progress towards that target, selling a fraction of the noncore acreage for over half the estimated proceeds,” Thomas B. Nusz, chairman and CEO of Oasis, said in a statement on June 26.

Nusz added Oasis will continue to evaluate the sale of additional noncore assets.

The transactions announced so far represent more than 30% of the noncore acreage Oasis earmarked for sale.

Applying the same sale metrics across the remaining 135,000 net acres and 4.6 Mboe/d of divestiture candidates, Oasis could bring in an additional $360.8 million of proceeds, according to Gabriele Sorbara, principal and senior equity analyst for Williams Capital Group LP.

“This would result in total proceeds of $643.8 million, above its $500 million target,” Sorbara said in a June 26 note.

Pro forma for the asset sales and recent debt offering, Sorbara calculates Oasis to have roughly $2.4 billion of total debt and total consolidated liquidity of about $1.5 billion, when assuming a $1.55 billion borrowing base.

For 2018, Oasis expects to continue to operate within cash flow with production averaging 80 to 83 Mboe/d from its assets in the Williston and Delaware basins. Total E&P capex is expected to remain between $815 million to $855 million, with about 85% of that capital deployed in Oasis’ Williston position.

RBC Richardson Barr and CIBC Griffis & Small were financial advisers to Oasis for the divestitures.

Emily Patsy can be reached at epatsy@hartenergy.com.