The large independents with Niobrara Shale Acreage.
finance.yahoo.com
Not too many value buys here as many are trading near 52wk highs (Except REXX & GMXR which have been discussed in earlier posts).
It's interesting to note the most recent Mega deals last quarter were foreign buyers.
Key shale natural gas and oil deals
reuters.com
From the article:"... Below are major shale gas and oil acquisitions:
APRIL 2011:
-- A subsidiary of Marubeni Corp (8002.T) said it will pay Marathon Oil Corp (MRO.N) about $270 million for a 30 percent stake, equivalent to 180,000 net acres, in the liquids-rich Niobrara Shale located in southeast Wyoming and northern Colorado.
FEBRUARY 2011
-- PetroChina (0857.HK) said it will pay Encana Corp (ECA.TO) $5.4 billion to form a joint venture and develop the Cutbank Ridge acreage, some 635,000 acres (257,000 hectares) in northeastern British Columbia, which produces around 255 million cubic feet of gas per day (mmcfd) from some 1 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of reserves.
-- BHP Billiton (BHP.AX) said it will pay Chesapeake Energy Corp (CHK.N) $4.75 billion for a 75 percent stake in the Fayetteville Shale in Arkansas.
The transaction would give BHP 487,000 net acres with a net production of around 415 million cubic feet of natural gas per day...."
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Analysis: Independent oil cos risk big money on unproven shale
reuters.com
From the article:"...Independent oil and gas companies are placing big bets on a new shale field on the hopes of tapping into vast supplies of oil, but some fear they could be pumping large amounts of cash into a region whose potential is still far from proven...."
<snip>
"...While the Chesapeake-CNOOC deal valued the shale at about $3,000 per acre in January, Marathon's agreement with Marubeni came in at about $5,000 an acre on Wednesday. Deals in top liquids-rich shales Bakken and Eagle Ford have gone for up to $12,000 per acre.
Trimble and Sharma also said given that the shale is in an exploratory phase, it would take a long time for development to kick in and for the companies to find highly productive wells.
"It could take easily 4-5 years before you make sense of where the good spots are... Still a lot of de-risking has to happen," Sharma said....".
EKS |
