Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Energy Stocks: Denbury, ConocoPhillips rise after oil-field deal

By Claudia Assis, MarketWatch

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) ? Energy stocks fell Tuesday, but shares of Denbury Resources Inc. rallied after the company unveiled a deal with ConocoPhillips.

Oil-and-gas producer Denbury /quotes/zigman/190110/quotes/nls/dnr DNR +5.21% ?rose nearly 6% to $17.85, its highest since September. Denbury ended the day up 5.2%, the top gainer among energy stocks on the S&P 500 Index.

ConocoPhillips /quotes/zigman/294662/quotes/nls/cop COP +0.96% ?sold about 86,000 acres straddling Montana and North Dakota to Denbury for $1.05 billion. Shares of ConocoPhillips rose 1%.

Conoco Phillips?s Bohai Bay, China, offshore oil-production facility.

Net production in the areas sold averaged 13,000 barrels of oil equivalent last year, ConocoPhillips said in a statement. The sale does not include ConocoPhillips?s assets in the Bakken formation, which sits across Canada?s Saskatchewan and Montana and North Dakota.

Plano, Texas-based Denbury had recently sold its Bakken assets to Exxon Mobil Corp. /quotes/zigman/203975/quotes/nls/xom XOM -0.06% ?for $1.3 billion. It said it would partly fund the ConocoPhillips purchase with that money, and the transaction also allows for a deferment of more than $400 million in taxes on the Exxon deal.

In addition to the tax deferment, the deal ?gives [Denbury] additional liquidity with which it can continue to execute its share repurchase program,? analysts at Simmons said in a note to clients Tuesday.

For ConocoPhillips, the deal ?represents continued portfolio optimization? that allows the company ?to more intently focus on the Bakken,? the Simmons analysts said.

Investors? bet on ?clean? China

Shares of environmental protection companies rise Tuesday after Chinese authorities say they plan to tackle the country's worsening pollution levels.

With Tuesday?s deal, ConocoPhillips has announced total asset sales of about $12 billion in the past year, more than its $8 billion to $10 billion target.

The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter, which would increase Denbury?s 2013 average production by 7,700 barrels of oil equivalent a day.

Meanwhile, shares of Exxon Mobil declined 0.1%. Smaller rival Chevron Corp. /quotes/zigman/289939/quotes/nls/cvx CVX +0.52% ?turned higher and ended Tuesday advancing 0.5%.

Chevron has submitted a bid to explore and produce shale gas in Lithuania, according to media reports. The Baltic nation is looking to ease its dependency on Russia, as Russia?s state-controlled energy giant Gazprom is Lithuania?s only gas supplier.

Shares of Kinder Morgan Inc. /quotes/zigman/3811989/quotes/nls/kmi KMI -0.27% ?declined 0.3%. The company is slated to report fourth-quarter results on Wednesday.

/quotes/zigman/190110/quotes/nls/dnr

US : U.S.: NYSE

Volume: 16.37M

Jan. 15, 2013 4:02p

/quotes/zigman/294662/quotes/nls/cop

US : U.S.: NYSE

Volume: 6.06M

Jan. 15, 2013 4:00p

/quotes/zigman/203975/quotes/nls/xom

US : U.S.: NYSE

Volume: 8.88M

Jan. 15, 2013 4:00p

Market Cap

$408.43 billion

/quotes/zigman/289939/quotes/nls/cvx

US : U.S.: NYSE

Volume: 5.46M

Jan. 15, 2013 4:02p

Market Cap

$220.87 billion

/quotes/zigman/3811989/quotes/nls/kmi

US : U.S.: NYSE

Volume: 2.91M

Jan. 15, 2013 4:00p

Claudia Assis is a San Francisco-based reporter for MarketWatch. Follow her on Twitter @ClaudiaAssisMW.

Source: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7B83CB8B92-5F22-11E2-AD22-002128040CF6%7D&siteid=rss&rss=1

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