ConocoPhillips captures Shell’s Permian portfolio

Houston-based firm swoops in to take the European major’s entire Delaware footprint and bolster its position in the basin

US ‘superindie’ ConocoPhillips is consolidating its position in the Lower 48’s most important shale play. The company’s decision to fork out $9.5bn on Shell’s entire Permian assets is the largest all-cash US upstream deal in over three years and comes just shy of a year since its absorption of Permian pure-play independent Concho Resources in a deal worth $13.3bn.  Shell may have been slapped on the wrist by a Dutch court in May and ordered to cut its emissions by 45pc before the end of the decade. But ConocoPhillips is going about its business as normal, mopping up Lower 48 assets and expanding its Permian footprint regardless of any wider decarbonisation shift. The deal makes the US operat