COP: To Sell Its Minority Interest in the Caspian

Updates

November 27, 2012: India will buy COP's assets in the Caspian.

Oil & Natural Gas Corp.'s plan to pay as much as $5 billion to ConocoPhillips for a stake in a Kazakhstan oil project could herald more such deals by Indian energy companies seeking to offset declining domestic production in the face of rising energy demand.

The purchase by ONGC Videsh Ltd., the state-owned company's overseas investment arm, will likely help India's largest explorer to arrest a steady decline of oil and gas production in recent years.

Original Post

I wasn't going to post this as a stand-alone post; rather just post a link at the COP page.

The story:

ConocoPhillips is selling a minority interest in drilling sites off the coast of Kazakhstan for about $5 billion as it continues to downsize.

The Houston company has aggressively sold refineries, pipelines and other assets over the past few years to remake itself as an independent oil and gas producer. It has sold more than $20 billion in assets and investments since 2010. 

I could be wrong, but this seems to be shouting: we are going to focus on the continental US and Canada.  COP operates in the Bakken through Burlington Resources.

By the way, whether the area under discussion is the very same area or not, it's probably close enough to remind readers that the MillionDollarWay posted a story about this area almost exactly one year ago: the Caspian Sea is turning out to be a bust. The link to the original story is still there, surprisingly.