Cenovus to sell some non-core assets for $660 million

(Reuters) - Cenovus Energy Inc on Tuesday agreed to sell its retail fuels network and assets in Wembley, Alberta, in two separate deals worth about $660 million, as the oil and gas producer looks to shed non-core assets to repay debt.

Cenovus, which acquired Husky Energy earlier this year for about $5 billion, has set an interim net debt target of $10 billion and is expecting to meet that goal by offloading assets not central to its operations.

The company said it would sell 337 gas stations in its Husky retail fuels network to Parkland Corp and Federated Co-operatives Ltd for $420 million, while retaining its commercial fuels business.

It, however, did not disclose the buyer of its Wembley assets, where total production averaged about 3,200 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2021, with about 38% oil and natural gas liquids.

"With these latest transactions, we now expect to realize more than $1.1 billion of total proceeds from sales announced in 2021," Cenovus Chief Executive Officer Alex Pourbaix said.

(Reporting by Rithika Krishna in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)