Pioneer Resources Closes $866MM Sale Of Tunisia Assets

Closed acquisition of Tunisian assets in Ghadames Basin with WI in five blocks covering 3 million acres, gaining 5,400 BOE/d.

A subsidiary of OMV AG, Vienna, (WBAG: OMV) has closed its acquisition of all the stock of the Tunisia subsidiaries of Pioneer Natural Resources Co., Dallas, (NYSE: PXD) for $866 million in cash.

Pioneer has an acreage position in the Ghadames Basin of southern Tunisia with an interest in five blocks totaling approximately 3 million acres. The company has successfully explored in the Adam, Cherouq, Borj El Khadra and Anaguid blocks.

The company is operator of the Cherouq block. Facilities are currently being constructed to handle growing production. Pioneer is also operator of the Anaguid block, where its first exploration well was a discovery.

Net production from the Tunisia subsidiaries averaged approximately 5,400 barrels oil equivalent per day during 2010.

Pioneer chairman and chief executive Scott Sheffield says, "The sale of Tunisia [allows] us to strategically redeploy capital to our high-return, oil-related core assets in the U.S. We plan to utilize the proceeds from the divestiture to accelerate drilling in the Spraberry and the Eagle Ford Shale."

In the Eagle Ford Shale, an acceleration plan has now been approved by the joint-venture partners, which will result in an average of 12 rigs operating during 2011 as compared to the initial development plan that ramped up to 10 rigs by the end of 2011.