OKLAHOMA CITY – Devon Energy CEO Clay Gaspar hinted this week the company might make a decision sooner than originally suggested about selling some of its assets following its $58 billion merger with Coterra, a merger that closed in May.
It’s what he said at this week’s JPMorgan Chase’s energy conference in New York. His comments came more than a month where Gaspar revealed at a May 6 earnings call that Devon was reviewing all assets with a view toward optimizing its portfolio.
“Every asset in the combined portfolio has to compete for its capital and earn its seat at the table,” he said at the time.
His New York comments on Tuesday came on top of a recent call by activist investor TOMS Capital Investment Management, which acquired a considerable stake in Devon Energy, and is pressing the U.S. shale operator to sell assets or put itself up for sale, five people familiar with the matter said, reported Reuters.
Devon has a presence in half-dozen shale basins, including the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico as well as the Anadarko Basin in Oklahoma where its headquarters were once located before it announced a move to Houston.
Another big investor, Kimmeridge Energy Management Company has pressured Devon and called for actions, including asset sales, to streamline the business and avoid a “conglomerate discount” in the stock price. Reuters reported TOMS Capital, run by Benjamin Pass, has been engaging with management in recent weeks to press for faster asset sales, the sources said. Unlike Kimmeridge, TOMS has also said it would be open to a sale of the company and has been trying to generate behind-the-scenes interest from other oil and gas companies to bid for Devon, two of the sources added.
The pressure followed a recent $8 billion attempt by Stone Ridge Asset Management to buy Devon’s Marcellus shale assets.
Stone Ridge is a New York-based investment manager with $35 billion in assets which are predominantly focused on natural gas. Devon’s Marcellus assets comprise 190,000 net acres in Pennsylvania and before the merger, were included in Coterra Energy’s portfolio.
The Stone Ridge offer, through asset-backed securitization (ABS), was reportedly tabled in recent weeks. ABS structures usually pledge future production revenues as collateral. It was an approach Stone Ridge used in acquiring Ovintiv’s Oklahoma assets for $3 billion in April. The deal was in partnership with Flywheel Energy.
The Marcellus shale package accounts for a significant share of Devon Energy’s production forecast. According to a company presentation in February 2026, the Marcellus was projected to provide approximately 20% of Devon Energy’s expected output of 1.6 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2026, second only to the Delaware Basin at 53%.
Jerry Bohnen is the founder and creator of OK Energy Today, which began in 2012. He is an Edward R. Murrow Investigative award winner and has been recognized by other national, regional and state institutions during his 50 years as a broadcast journalist. Contact Jerry at editor@okenergytoday.com.