Murphy Oil’s Canadian subsidiary sells assets

Petroleum News Staff

Murphy Oil’s Canada subsidiary has agreed to sell its interests in several Scotian Shelf exploration licenses, the company said June 22. Includes in the transaction are Murphy’s interests in the Grand Pre, Musquodoboit, Margaree, Huckleberry and Highland licenses.

The sale is expected to close in the third quarter of 2003.

Murphy also said it has closed the sale of several western Canada oil and natural gas properties, representing a combined production of 1,500 barrels of oil equivalent a day.

“The sale of part of our Scotian Shelf acreage along with the sale of some of our western Canadian producing interests are part of our continuing effort to concentrate our capital in areas we feel have the most potential, such as Malaysia and the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. However, we have retained our interests in the prospective deepwater acreage on the Scotian Shelf, including the Annapolis block and plan to drill an offset to the Annapolis discovery next year,” Murphy President and CEO Claiborne Deming said.