Shareholders of oil and gas producer Noble Energy on Friday voted to approve the sale of the company to Chevron in an all-stock deal worth around $4.1 billion. The sale marks the first significant energy deal since the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the world’s energy demand this year. The acquisition will expand Chevron’s US shale assets, and Chevron will be the second-largest shale producer in the US behind EOG resources. The deal will also give it additional natural gas reserves of nearly 1 Bcf. Noble is the operator of Israel’s Leviathan gas field which began production in 2019.
The deal, which is expected to close at the beginning of this year’s fourth quarter, will give Noble investors 0.1191 Chevron shares for each share in Noble. In 2019, Chevron pulled out of a deal to acquire Anadarko Petroleum and received a break fee of $1 billion. Analysts said the move turned better as oil prices fell. At the same time, Noble and Chevron shares trended lower, which made the transaction cheaper.
