Devon Energy sells Eagle Ford acreage to Crescent Energy for $4.2 billion

The deal covers 90,000 net acres in South Texas and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026 or early 2027, pending antitrust clearance

Devon Energy has agreed to sell its Eagle Ford oil and gas assets in South Texas to Crescent Energy for $4.2 billion in cash, subject to customary purchase price adjustments. The deal has an effective date of July 1, 2026 and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026 or early 2027, pending regulatory approvals including antitrust clearance.

The assets include 90,000 net acres and more than 600 drilling locations producing 68,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, mainly oil, according to Oil & Gas Journal. That represents about 4% of Devon's total output, StreetInsider reported. Crescent said it expects combined production of roughly 400,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day once the deal closes, and that it will become the second-largest Eagle Ford producer after a string of acquisitions in the basin since June 2023, Oil & Gas Journal reported. Crescent put the net purchase price at approximately $3.85 billion after anticipated adjustments and said it expects $140 million a year in operational and commercial savings, including $100 million from drilling and completion changes, Oilprice.com reported; those figures are company projections rather than results already achieved.

Devon said after-tax proceeds will go toward accelerated share repurchases and debt reduction. The sale follows Devon's $58 billion merger with Coterra Energy earlier this year, which created one of the largest independent oil producers in the United States, and comes as investors have pushed the company to streamline its portfolio around the Permian basin, Reuters reported via BOE Report. It is also part of a broader pattern: shale producers have been selling assets to pay down debt following a consolidation wave that has totaled more than $450 billion in deals since the start of 2023, according to Reuters.

Devon, based in Houston, has a market value of about $53 billion; Crescent, also Houston-based and backed by KKR & Co., is valued at roughly $4.5 billion, Briefs.co reported. The divestiture marks a clean exit from a basin that no longer fit Devon's capital allocation priorities, concentrating its growth capital on the Permian and turning a non-core, decade-old legacy position into cash at a time when producers are under pressure to show capital discipline rather than chase production growth.