Murphy Oil Selling 30% Stake Of Malaysian Assets For $2 Billion

Murphy Oil Corp. announced that its wholly owned subsidiaries, Murphy Sabah Oil Co., Ltd. and Murphy Sarawak Oil Co., Ltd., have entered into an agreement with PT Pertamina Malaysia Eksplorasi Produksi to sell 30% of Murphy’s Malaysian oil and gas assets.

The sales price is an estimated $2 billion all-cash transaction.

The company said the effective date of the transaction will be January 1, 2014 with a closing expected to take place in two phases.

The first phase is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2014 and the second phase is expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2015.

Murphy will remain operator and continue to execute its development plans as well as grow through future exploration in both deep-water and shallow-water Malaysia.

“This transaction marks the value of the high-margin, long-term assets in our Malaysian business,” said Roger Jenkins, Murphy Oil President and CEO. “We are excited to strengthen our partnership with Pertamina and look forward to working with them and our other partners in Malaysia.”

“We will continue to evaluate all aspects of our portfolio. This transaction allows us to re-deploy the proceeds through an individual or combination of strategic and financial initiatives such as increased drilling capital in the Eagle Ford Shale, acquisition opportunities, debt reduction and share repurchases,” Jenkins added.