In newly announced deals, Antero Resources and Antero Midstream will expand their holdings in northern West Virginia and divest non-core assets in eastern Ohio.
There’s been a frenzy of M&A activity in the Permian Basin the past couple of years, and in recent months many of the acquiring E&Ps have reviewed their expanded base of assets, determined which acreage, wells and future well sites are core to their business going forward, and initiated the process of divesting the rest. At the same time, others — including some producers that were part of the merger mania — are on the hunt for what they see as underappreciated assets with the potential to shine. Folks, we’re in the early stages of what you might call “The Great Permian Reshuffling” — a rapid-fire exchange of upstream assets in the nation’s most prolific shale play. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss a few of the most noteworthy “bolt-on” deals and what they tell us.
The Uinta Basin is no Permian when it comes to drilling activity and production volumes, but the folks behind what may be the biggest M&A deal in Uinta history say the oil-production economics in parts of the quirky-as-heck play in northeastern Utah compare very favorably with the best of the Permian’s Delaware and Midland basins. And where else will an astounding 85%-plus of the produced hydrocarbons come out of the ground as high-quality waxy crude? In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the recently announced plan by SM Energy and non-op specialist Northern Oil & Gas (NOG) to acquire XCL Resources in a pair of deals valued at $2.55 billion.
