Halliburton, Baker Hughes to sell assets for merger nod

Oil-services companies Halliburton and Baker Hughes announced Monday they plan to sell additional businesses to win support from US antitrust regulators for their $34.6 billion merger.

Additional properties targeted for sale include assets in Halliburton's well completion and production business, two Baker Hughes pressure pumping vessels in the Gulf of Mexico and its offshore cementing business in Australia, Brazil, the Gulf of Mexico, Norway and Britain.

These divestitures are on top of a previous list of assets slated for sale announced by the companies in April. Total revenues from all the businesses planned for divestiture were $5.2 billion in 2013, the companies said.

In November 2014, the Houston, Texas-based Halliburton announced it was acquiring its crosstown rival to create a bigger global competitor to market-leader Schlumberger. When the companies announced the deal, Halliburton said it foresaw up to $7.5 billion in assets may have to be sold to win approval, but that it did not expect regulators to demand such large divestitures.

Oil services companies are hired by producers such as ExxonMobil and BP to provide key drilling and well services in exploration and production.

Halliburton and Baker Hughes said they were pushing back the target date for approval from the US Department of Justice's antitrust division to December 15, 2015, three weeks later than the prior projection.

The merger was expected to close on December 16, but the timeframe could be extended into 2016 if necessary, the companies said.

In late-morning trade, shares of Baker Hughes were down 1.4 percent at $51.76 and Halliburton's were off 2.8 percent at $35.66. Other leading oil services companies also fell on lower oil prices.