By GINA CHON, ANUPREETA DAS and RYAN DEZEMBER
Samson Investment Co., one of the country's largest privately held oil and gas explorers, is considering strategic options including whether to sell itself in a deal that could fetch as much as $10 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Tulsa, Okla.-based company, little known outside the oil patch, has been seeking a financial adviser to assess a range of options from setting up a joint venture to a full sale, the people said. Hiring an investment bank would be a first step, although the company could still decide not to proceed further, they cautioned.
Samson operates more than 4,000 wells and has significant production operations in Texas and the Gulf of Mexico's deep waters. In the last three years, it invested more than $4 billion in drilling and oil and gas property acquisitions, according to its website.
If the Schustermans decide to pursue a full sale, Samson could fetch between $7 billion and $10 billion, they added. The company has more than 1,200 employees and has offices in Canada and Scotland.
Samson did not reply to requests for comment.
It is owned by one of the country's wealthiest families, the Schustermans. Charles Schusterman founded the company 40 years ago and built it through acquisitions, according to the company's website. Mr. Schusterman, who died in 2000, was an active philanthropist and gave generously to programs designed to improve Jewish life and culture in the U.S., a family foundation website says.Stacy Schusterman, his daughter, is chief executive and vice president of the family's charitable foundation.
Samson's interest in exploring options comes amid a boom in shale drilling, which although lucrative is far more expensive than traditional drilling. Samson, the people said, wants to do more shale drilling beneath its oilfields, mostly in the U.S. To finance the shale push, Samson is weighing whether to partner with another company or raise funds through a full or partial sale, those people said.
Shale is an oil and gas-bearing rock that companies have learned how to tap in recent years by combining complex horizontal drilling techniques and a rock-cracking process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
Although Samson now drills in some shale formations in North Dakota, Texas and Pennsylvania, much of its focus has been on extracting oil and gas from conventional fields. Samson is active in the Haynesville Shale, which straddles the Texas-Louisiana border, and the Marcellus Shale, which lies beneath several states including New York and Pennsylvania.
Shale ventures have generated a number of deals in recent years. Oklahoma City-basedChesapeake Energy Corp. has sold stakes in five shale ventures to pay for drilling. Combined those five deals thus far have exceeded $12 billion. The country's second-largest natural gas producer says it plans to strike similar deals in three more fields, including Ohio's oil-bearing Utica Shale, by the end of 2012.
Other shale-intensive producers, such as XTO Energy Inc. and Petrohawk Energy Corp., have opted to simply sell their entire operations to major oil companies Exxon Mobil Corp. and BHP Billiton Ltd., respectively.
Write to Gina Chon at gina.chon@wsj.com and Anupreeta Das atanupreeta.das@wsj.com
