California Resources Corp. (CRC) has agreed to sell its Uinta basin assets for roughly $90 million to an undisclosed buyer, exiting a Utah position it inherited just nine months ago through its $709 million acquisition of Berry Corp.

The deal carries an effective date of July 1 and is expected to close by yearend. The assets span about 100,000 net acres in the Uinta basin, but they accounted for only 2.5% of CRC's oil production and 8% of its natural gas production in the second quarter.

The sale marks a rapid reversal for the Long Beach-based producer, which closed the Berry acquisition in December. CEO Francisco Leon had already signaled the shift in priorities. "It's hard to see allocating a lot of dollars back into the Uinta," he told analysts last month, explaining that his team is concentrating capital on building out CRC's California asset network.

Leon laid out the economics bluntly on Aug. 10, after CRC reported second-quarter results. "It requires a pretty significant amount of capital to develop the scale that we need for a second asset," he said. "So as we do a side-by-side and we compare the Uinta assets with California, Uinta has higher capital intensity, higher break-evens, lower crude quality [and] higher transportation and operating costs and steeper declines."

In the deal announcement, Leon framed the transaction as a balance-sheet move. "Today's transaction strengthens our business," he said. "This transaction enhances our capital allocation flexibility, allowing us to invest in higher-return opportunities within the Golden State, and supports our shareholder return strategy."

The $90 million price represents a steep discount to the $709 million CRC paid for Berry in total, though the Berry portfolio also included California properties that remain core to the combined company. The Uinta position, by contrast, carried operational handicaps that Leon enumerated point by point: capital intensity, break-evens, crude quality differentials, transportation and operating costs, and production decline rates.

CRC said the Uinta sale offsets the price it will pay for a package of California midstream assets it plans to buy from CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust. That purchase — pipelines and related operations — is expected to close later this month, adding infrastructure to the in-state network CRC is assembling.

The market reaction was muted. CRC shares traded at $54.24 in late-morning trading Sept. 17, down slightly on the session. The stock has shed about 15% of its value over the past six months, bringing the company's market capitalization to roughly $4.8 billion.

The divestiture leaves CRC as an essentially single-basin operator, with its capital concentrated on California fields and the midstream footprint connecting them. The trade narrows the company's commodity exposure to the crude quality and regulatory environment of one state — a concentration Leon has embraced rather than hedged against.

Watch items: the yearend closing of the Uinta sale, the CorEnergy midstream purchase completing later this month, and how CRC deploys the freed-up capital across its California development program.