LONDON: Royal Dutch Shell Plc announced on Thursday the sale of onshore US shale gas assets as the energy company restructures its North America production and reins in costs.

Shell said it had agreed to sell its relatively mature natural gas-producing properties in Wyoming’s Pinedale field and Louisiana’s Haynesville field for about $2.1 billion in cash.

The Anglo-Dutch company is selling the Pinedale asset to Ultra Petroleum in exchange for $925m in cash and acreage in the Marcellus and Utica oil and gas shale fields in Pennsylvania.

It will sell the Haynesville asset to Vine Oil & Gas LP and its partner Blackstone for $1.2bn. “We continue to restructure and focus our North America shale oil and gas portfolio to deliver the most value in the longer term,” said Marvin Odum, Shell’s Upstream Americas Director.—Reuters

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2014