Matador Buying Some Ameredev Assets for $1.9 Billion

Enterprise Products Partners, already a leading provider of “well-to-water” or “well-to-market” midstream services out of the Permian, recently announced a deal to acquire private-equity-backed Piñon Midstream for $950 million in cash. But this isn’t just another bolt-on. Over the past few years, Piñon has been building out its one-of-a-kind Dark Horse system, which gathers and treats “sour” associated gas in a highly prolific, crude-oil-saturated part of the northern Delaware Basin and permanently sequesters the resulting hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and carbon dioxide (CO2) deep underground. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss the impending Enterprise/Piñon acquisition, what Dark Horse does and how it gives Enterprise access to what may be the next hot production area in the Permian. 

“Top-tier rock, massive scale, and ever-improving efficiency” — that’s the mantra of the largest publicly held E&Ps in the Permian, many of which have only added to their heft during the pandemic/post-pandemic era by acquiring complementary production and midstream assets from private equity funds and old-time oil-and-gas families. Yes, it’s either/or time in the U.S.’s leading oil and gas basin: Either you get bigger, high-grade the acreage you control and supercharge your free cash flow (and your stock buybacks and dividends) or you accept your fate as an also-ran or, if you’re lucky, an acquisition target. Just last week, Matador Resources announced a $1.6 billion deal to acquire Advance Energy Partners, which will boost Matador’s Delaware Basin output by 25% and give it a foothold in the Permian’s big-boy league. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss this and other recent asset acquisitions in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico and what they say about the Permian’s future.

Some of the most prolific, crude-oil-saturated rock in the Permian’s Delaware Basin and Central Platform comes with a nasty complication — namely, associated gas with very high levels of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and carbon dioxide (CO2). But rather than walking away from all those potential barrels, one midstream company saw the treatment of high-H2S, high-CO2 gas as a market niche worth pursuing. Backed by commitments from Black Bay Energy Capital and an area E&P, Piñon Midstream has been expanding a system in southeastern New Mexico that not only gathers the super-corrosive gas and removes almost all the H2S and CO2, it also permanently sequesters the stuff deep underground through a pair of 18,000-foot-deep, Class II injection wells. In today’s RBN blog, we will provide an update on Piñon’s Dark Horse Treating Facility and the company’s plan for a further build-out of its sour gas system.