July 20, 2020
(Reuters) – Oil major Chevron Corp said on Monday it agreed to buy Noble Energy Inc in an all-stock deal, valuing the Houston-based oil and gas producer at $5 billion.
The offer values Noble at $10.38 a share or 0.1191 Chevron share, a 7.5% premium to Noble’s Friday close. The deal would value Noble at roughly $13 billion, including debt.
Noble’s assets will expand Chevron’s presence in the DJ Basin of Colorado and the Permian Basin across West Texas and New Mexico. They would also add to Chevron’s assets in the eastern Mediterranean and West Africa and yield potential annual cost savings of $300 million.
Chevron’s offer comes more than a year after it was forced to abandon its takeover bid for Anadarko Petroleum Corp, outmaneuvered by Occidental Petroleum Corp’s higher offer.
Shale producers have been hit hard as oil prices collapsed in April due to the pandemic and a brief price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia, leading many companies to seek bankruptcy protection.
While prices have recovered from their lows, they remain depressed as a new surge of COVID-19 cases threaten to stall recovery in fuel demand.
(Reporting by Shanti S Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)