Properties

Chesapeake Energy Corp. has to sell “at least” $7 billion worth of assets this year to avoid a breach of debt covenants and a credit downgrade, a senior analyst with Moody’s Investors Service said Thursday.

There are billions of dollars worth of assets on the market and “plenty of money” available to Dallas-based Exco Resources Inc. as it pursues several potential acquisitions in the gas market, Exco Resources Inc. CEO Doug Miller said during a conference call with analysts Wednesday.

Red Leaf Resources Inc. has entered into a joint venture (JV) with a U.S. subsidiary of France’s Total SA to develop oil shale in the Uinta Basin in Utah.

Marathon Oil Corp. has agreed to sell nearly all of its natural gas properties in the state for an undisclosed sum to Hilcorp Alaska LLC, a unit of privately held Hilcorp Energy Co. The sale includes an estimated 17 million boe net of proved reserves in 10 fields in which Marathon holds interests in the Cook Inlet. Gas operations include the McArthur River, Ninilchik, Cannery Loop and Kenai Gas units, as well as Beaver Creek, which is an oil and gas development within the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. The sales package also includes natural gas storage and gas pipeline transmission systems. Last year Marathon’s Alaska net production averaged 93 MMcf/d of gas and 112 b/d of oil. The company also had about 12.5 Bcf in storage at the end of 2011. The transaction, with an effective date of Jan. 1, 2012, is set to be completed this fall. Not to be sold is Marathon’s onshore drilling rig, which is being marketed separately.

Marathon Oil Corp., an Alaska operator for more than 55 years, late Monday agreed to sell nearly all of its natural gas properties in the state for an undisclosed sum to a unit of privately held heavyweight Hilcorp Energy Co.

PDC Mountaineer (PDCM), a joint venture (JV) of Petroleum Development Corp. (PDC) and Lime Rock Partners V LP, will temporarily suspend drilling in the Marcellus Shale “due to the current depressed natural gas price environment,” according to Denver-based PDC.

Last year saw a transformation at Houston-based Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. as the company shifted from deriving its revenue mostly from natural gas to an equal reliance upon revenue from oil production, CEO Chip Johnson told financial analysts Tuesday. “We expect this trend to continue for the entire year of 2012 as we become increasingly weighted toward oil production,” he said.

Linn Energy LLC late Monday said it agreed to pay $1.2 billion to acquire BP plc’s natural gas rich Hugoton Basin properties in Kansas.

Foreign buyers up to now have been gaining intelligence about drilling in North America’s prolific unconventional formations through joint ventures (JV) and region-specific acquisitions with willing U.S. natural gas and producers, but that’s about to change, according to an energy expert with industry consultant PwC US.