Jan 20 (Reuters) - Unit Corp (UNTC.PK), one of the top U.S. natural gas producers, has hired an investment bank for a sale of its oil & gas producing assets in the Anadarko and Gulf Coast basins that could fetch around $1 billion, sources told Reuters on Thursday.

Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Unit, which filed for bankruptcy in May 2020 at the height of a slump in oil prices, has reached out to interested parties for a divestiture of its upstream subsidiary Unit Petroleum Co, the sources said.

The sources, who requested anonymity because the matter is confidential, cautioned that no sale agreement had been reached and Unit could still scrap the plan.

Unit did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The planned sale includes land spanning about 270,000 net acres in the Anadarko basin of Texas and Oklahoma and around 24,000 net acres in the U.S. Gulf Coast along the Texas coastline, according to marketing documents seen by Reuters.

The assets are estimated to have a total output of around 136 million cubic feet per day of equivalent gas in April, the month when any potential sale would be effective on Unit's books, according to the documents. Bids for the assets are due in March, the documents showed.

Unit also owns contract drilling and natural gas gathering subsidiaries. Those businesses are not part of the proposed sale.

The company's planned sale of its upstream business would be the latest instance of a producer hoping to attract strong offers after months-long rally in both crude oil and natural gas prices.

Chesapeake Energy Corp (CHK.O) is in advanced talks to buy Chief Oil & Gas for around $2.4 billion, Reuters reported on Wednesday. Privately held Alta Resources was sold in July to EQT Corp (EQT.N) for $2.9 billion, and Southwestern Energy Co (SWN.N) acquired Indigo Natural Resources in September and GEP Haynesville in December.

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