CMS Energy to part with oil and gas unit for $232 million

CMS Energy Corp. has signed a definitive agreement to sell its oil and gas exploration and production unit, CMS Oil & Gas Co., to privately held French E&P firm Perenco SA for $232 million.

July 30, 2002

By OGJ editors

HOUSTON, July 30 -- Dearborn, Mich.-based CMS Energy Corp. has signed a definitive agreement to sell its oil and gas exploration and production unit, CMS Oil & Gas Co., to privately held French E&P firm Perenco SA and its affiliated companies for $232 million. The sale excludes the E&P unit's Colombian assets, however, which the company is currently negotiating to sell to another unnamed company.

CMS expects the sale of both sets of assets to close in the third quarter.

CMS joins the ranks of other energy merchant companies in recent months that have been selling assets to lighten their debt loads amid investigations into so-called "round-trip" electricity trades. Earlier this year, CMS was asked by the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to come forward with information about the round-trip trades, particularly those sold into California (OGJ Online, May 29, 2002).

Most recently, CMS sold its upstream and downstream interests in Equatorial Guinea to Houston-based Marathon Oil Co. for $993 million (OGJ, Nov. 12, 2001, p. 40), but this sale occurred before the investigations began.