HOUSTON — Plains Exploration & Production Co., which doubled its oil and natural- gas output when it bought a rival last month, agreed to sell assets to Occidental Petroleum Corp. and XTO Energy Inc. for a combined $1.75 billion and said it will buy back $1 billion of stock.
The sale to Occidental is valued at $1.55 billion, and the XTO transaction is worth $200 million, Houston-based Plains said in a statement Monday. Shares will be repurchased from earnings, chief executive James Flores said on an investor call.
Plains bought competitor Pogo Producing Co. on Nov. 7 for about $3.6 billion. In October, three months after the deal was announced, shareholder Sandell Asset Management Corp. urged the company to sell assets to raise money for a stock buyback.
Los Angeles-based Occidental will get a 50 percent stake in Plains properties in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico and operate them, said the statement. It will gain a 50 percent interest in assets in the Piceance Basin of western Colorado that Plains will operate. XTO, in Fort Worth, Texas, is buying Plains properties in New Mexico’s San Juan Basin and the Barnett shale region of Texas.
