When everyone in oil seems like they are ready to pay anything for a piece of land in the Permian Basin, a report that one oil company is actually selling Permian acreage might come as something of a shock. It doesn’t make sense, at least at first glance. But Conoco this week announced just that—it is offloading non-core assets in the Permian and South Texas to the tune of US$250 million. In the same update, Conoco announced the acquisition of acreage in the Montney conventional play in Canada and in the Austin chalk in Louisiana. One can’t help but wonder if Conoco doesn’t know something the rest of Big Oil has been missing. That’s hardly the case. Conoco is in fact following its strategy of buying low and selling high, while securing its business against the new normal in oil markets, which comes down to permanently excessive price volatility […]