MIDLAND, Texas—It’s quite fashionable these days for E&Ps to become pure plays in order to obtain a higher public-market valuation, so many of them are buying and selling assets to do just that. But few have made as dramatic a portfolio move as Energen Corp. (NYSE: EGN), which by year-end expects to have closed on the sale of its Alagasco gas utility subsidiary in Alabama to net $1.1 billion after tax.

“It’s a good time to be unlevered,” said CEO James McManus, speaking at the 20th annual Executive Oil Conference in Midland recently. The company also plans to sell its dry gas assets in the San Juan Basin.

These sales will further Energen’s strategy as a pure play oil company, where this year 98% of its capex is in the Midland and Delaware basins. Its production growth in the Permian could exceed 30% from 2014 to 2025.

In the greater Permian Basin, it has 300,000 net acres under lease. The Birmingham, Ala.-based company reported 348 MMboe of proved reserves, 82% in the Permian, with 2.4 billion boe in 3P resources in the Wolfcamp and Cline shale plays—that’s as many as 5,500 unrisked net locations identified in the Midland and Delaware sub-basins.

Like everyone else, McManus and his team are modeling various oil price scenarios for 2015, but he said the company’s net income breakeven price is a comfortable $39.75/bbl (from continuing operations).

“We think our 2015 capex will be close to what we spent in 2014—$1.35 billion, but we’re not going to invest in anything without appropriate returns.

“We don’t see a dramatic change…and 72% of our fourth-quarter 2104 production is hedged,” he said. Some 65% of that budget will be for drilling and infrastructure in the Midland Basin and 30% in the Delaware Basin. The remainder is targeting Mancos Shale oil in the nearby San Juan, a play that can compete favorably with the Midland Basin “if we can get repeatability”.

The Delaware Basin has been the real growth story for the company, McManus said, where it has posted some 3,115 potential (unrisked) locations. He said it had to be a leader in drilling there because its acreage was expiring, but results have been so good that other players have entered the basin, including Anadarko Petroleum and Cimarex.

“We have been running six to eight horizontal rigs—five in the Delaware. We do have two vertical Wolfberry rigs running, but at one time we had as many as 11. Like everyone else, we are going horizontal.”

Third-quarter production exceeded guidance, with the Third Bone Spring wells being especially productive. Additionally, the company plans three Lower Spraberry wells in what McManus called “a very encouraging formation.”