Tenneco to Sell Oil Interests for $7.3 Billion

Tenneco Inc. has reached agreement to sell substantially all segments of its Tenneco Oil Co. subsidiary for more than $7.3 billion, the company said today.

Chevron Corp. said it would buy Tenneco’s Gulf of Mexico oil and natural gas reserves, production facilities and leasehold interests for about $2.6 billion.

Maverick Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens’ Mesa Limited Partnership agreed to purchase Tenneco’s Mid-Continent division for $715 million in cash, and Seagull Energy Corp. bought several Tenneco properties for $56.2 million.

Tenneco refused to disclose the number of purchasers, the names of the companies involved or how much they were to pay for the eight segments offered for sale.

“We will not issue any specifics on the buyers,” Tenneco spokesman Joseph Macrum said. “Once they have announced, we will confirm they are indeed a buyer. . . . Those companies have disclosure requirements and we cannot disclose this (information) for another company.”

Macrum also would not say whether any of the purchasers were foreign companies, although Tenneco earlier said some international firms had expressed interest in some of the properties.