El Paso Aims for 1Q Brazil Asset Sale

US gas company El Paso is expected to divest its Brazilian assets, along with the rest of its exploration and production business, by the end of the first quarter of 2012, says a person close to the transaction. Since the acquisition of El Paso by Kinder Morgan earlier this year, the pipeline company has been hawking its global E&P business in a sale that analysts estimate at $8bn. The bulk of the assets are the company’s US shale plays, but roughly 3% of the company’s total consolidated reserves, as measured in millions of cubic feet of natural gas equivalent, are located in Brazil, according to the company’s latest 10K filing. “The process is ongoing,” Bill Baerg, investor relations manager for El Paso, tells LatinFinance, referring to the sale. Baerg says the company plans to sell the bulk of its assets in one transaction but will have to seek different buyers if one single transaction is not viable. The company has retained Barclays and Evercore, the same firms that advised in Kinder Morgan’s $21.2bn acquisition of El Paso agreed in October. In Brazil, El Paso owns a 100% working interest in the offshore Pinauna and Camarao fields, a 25% stake in the Camarupim field and 35% stake in the Pescada-Arabaiana fields.