ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) Selling Half of Lukoil Stake

In an ongoing plan to divest itself of about $10 billion in assets through 2011, ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) announced it'll be selling about half of its stake in Russian-based Lukoil.

The chief executive office of Lukoil revealed the plans of Conoco, which owns a 20 percent stake in the company.

Some have noted over the years of Conoco's investment, there really hasn't been any new projects engaged in other than one the Russian artic regions, making it a fairly easy decision to make concerning a non-growth asset held by Conoco.

Shares at today's prices would bring somewhere around $4.7 billion to Conoco, which included as part of the divestiture of $10 billion, would be used largely to pay down debt owed by Conoco.

At an analyst meeting in New York today Conoco said other ways they're looking to increase shareholder value would be to sell about 10 percent of its portfolio in the United States and Western Canada, and its interests in the Rex Pipeline and Syncrude. What is left of its marketing assets in the U.S. is also on the block.

Close to half of the sales are slated to occur in 2010 and the other half sometime in 2011.