(Reuters) – Top U.S. independent oil producer ConocoPhillips said on Friday it has received a second request from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for information about its proposed acquisition of rival Marathon Oil.
ConocoPhillips said both companies received the filings on July 11 and are working with the FTC to review the merger.
CONTEXT
Conoco said in May it would pay $22.5 billion in shares to Marathon Oil to increase its production and achieve greater economies of scale in U.S. shale fields and liquefied natural gas.
Their deal followed Exxon Mobil’s $60 billion acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources, Chevron’s proposed $53 billion merger with Hess, Chesapeake Energy’s $7.4 billion purchase of Southwestern Energy and Occidental Petroleum’s $12 billion bid for CrownRock.
BECAUSE IT’S IMPORTANT
Requesting additional information will likely delay the closing of the deal. ConocoPhillips had said in May that a “conservative” estimate of when the deal will close would be the fourth quarter of this year, delaying the full realization of the cost savings and benefits expected from sharing equipment and personnel. He reiterated the deadline on Friday.
The two companies have operations in the shale fields of West Texas, South Texas and North Dakota.
BY THE NUMBERS
The Conoco-Marathon combination would create a company that would pump 2.26 million barrels of oil and gas per day and add 1.32 billion barrels of proven reserves to ConocoPhillips’ 6.8 billion.
ConocoPhillips’ offering of 0.255 shares for each Marathon share represented a 14.7% premium over the company’s pre-deal closing price.
(Reporting by Gary McWilliams and Sourasis Bose; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)
