California’s largest independent sells Orcutt Hill Field near L.A.

Debra Beachy, Petroleum News contributing writer

Houston-based Nuevo Energy Co. has sold Orcutt Hill field and several surface tracts for $12.9 million. Orcutt Hill was the company’s last onshore California field outside of the San Joaquin Basin, the company said in an Aug. 28 press release.

The field is near Orcutt, Calif., in the general vicinity of Los Angeles, said company spokeswoman Barbara Forbes.

The field‘s average output of 1,235 barrels of oil a day represented 2 percent of production for Nuevo, California’s largest independent oil and gas producer. The Orcutt Hill field was part of a number of assets put on the block by Nuevo, which said it aims to conclude additional asset sales by the end of the year.

Proceeds from the sale will be used to pay down Nuevo’s bank debt, which stood at $66.2 million on June 30, 2003, the company said. The company had already decreased its debt by $122 million through the sale of non-core assets earlier this year, it said.

Nuevo also owns a field offshore the Republic of Congo in West Africa. Forbes said the company is continuing to develop the producing property.