In a nearly $4 billion deal expected to introduce more renewable and low-carbon energy to local oil fields, a Canadian pension fund joined a German asset management company Tuesday in acquiring Bakersfield-based oil producer Aera Energy LLC from its longtime owners.
The purchase puts California’s second-largest oil producer, launched 25 years ago by subsidiaries of Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp., in the hands of Hamburg-based energy asset management company IKAV and minority owner Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, headquartered in Toronto.
Both buyers said the acquisition announced by IKAV in September but not concluded until Tuesday morning furthers their common strategy of smoothing California’s transition to greater use of renewable energy while, in the meantime, continuing to produce oil and gas.
Aera President and CEO Erik Bartsch said no layoffs were under consideration at the employer of roughly 1,000 workers, most of them in Kern with others attending to operations in Fresno, Monterey and Ventura counties.
“Aera will always make decisions in the best interest of the business and market conditions and there are no organizational or staffing reductions planned as a result of the acquisition,” Bartsch said. “The new owners intend to maintain continuity of operations, and their commitment is to prioritize environment, health and safety first.”
The company is responsible for about a quarter of California’s in-state oil production, having pumped some 95,000 barrels per day as recently as 2021. Its revenue that year was reported at about $1 billion per year.
While terms of the transaction were not disclosed, Shell reported Tuesday that IKAV paid $2 billion for its 51.8 percent of Aera. Exxon Mobil issued no statement, but if it received the same price per share for its interest, then Aera sold for $3.86 billion.
The involvement of CPP Investments came as a surprise, in that IKAV announced in September it was buying all of Aera on its own, pending full regulatory approval. After IKAV took formal ownership Tuesday, CPP bought 49 percent of Aera from IKAV.
CPP manages investments in public and private equities, real estate and infrastructure on behalf of 21 million beneficiaries and contributors to the Canada Pension Plan. At the end of last year the fund was worth a reported $536 billion.
IKAV has not previously been involved in California oil but has produced petroleum in Colorado and New Mexico, in addition to its investments in wind, photovoltaic solar, hydroelectric generation, geothermal energy, pipelines, concentrating solar and energy storage.
To those, Aera is expected to add not only renewable energy-enabled oil and gas production but also carbon capture and sequestration — a federal and state government-subsidized way of removing greenhouse gas from the atmosphere and burying it underground in support of California’s ambitious climate goals.
“Over time,” Aera’s new owners said in a news release, “renewable power will be deployed across Aera’s land holdings, while selected legacy oil and gas infrastructure will be repurposed to create carbon capture and storage capability.”
Added IKAV Chairman Constantin von Wasserschleben, “By delivering an energy solution at Aera that ties renewable growth with the safe and responsible operation of conventional energy assets, we are pursuing the right steps to balance California’s energy demand with its future climate goals.”
California oil and gas production has been in decline since the mid-1980s. Under the Newsom administration, the industry has had to navigate an increasingly anti-oil regulatory environment. But Aera’s previous owners insisted neither situation was a factor last fall when IKAV’s purchase plan was announced.
Shell said at the time it hoped to resize and rebalance its portfolio toward less complex, lower risk and more resilient investments. Exxon Mobil, for its part, stated it planned to refocus on offshore oil production in South America, and that the Aera sale said fit its strategy of investing in oil and natural gas with low cost of production.
Bartsch said the new owners will accelerate the strategy and journey Aera has been on for years as the company continues to play a role in California’s energy security, affordability and reliability.
“We see for the future a vision where traditional forms of energy like oil and gas production will co-exist with growing deployment of renewables and other low-carbon solutions,” he said.
