Shell is to sell its Permian Basin assets to ConocoPhillips for US$9.5 billion as it accelerates its transition away from fossil fuels. With 225,000 net acres of land across the south-west of the USA, the assets currently produce around 175,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day; ConocoPhillips aims to increase that to 200,000, suggesting value for the buying party, but a Shell spokesperson also said that the sale represented “a very compelling value proposition”. As the Financial Times notes, the deal exemplifies the difference between European-headquartered oil and gas companies, which are tending more towards a transition away from fossil fuels, and their US-based competitors, which tend to have more of a concentration on their conventional core business.