To: Paul Senior who wrote (37294 ) 4/9/2010 10:17:09 AM From: E_K_S Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 78634 Marcellus Shale Land Deal UPDATE 2-Reliance to pay Atlas $1.7 bln for Marcellus JV Fri Apr 9, 2010 9:08am EDT * Reliance to pick up 40 pct in Atlas Energy's acreagereuters.com From the article:"... India's largest-listed firm will pick up a 40 percent stake in Atlas's operations in the booming Marcellus Shale -- a gas project that spans parts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York in the United States and which, according to some geologists, could hold enough natural gas to satisfy U.S. demand for a decade. Atlas's core Marcellus position consists of about 300,000 acres, largely in southwestern Pennsylvania, out of which about 120,000 acres will go to Reliance, the companies said...." -------------------------------------------------------------------- The deal provides 120,000 acres in the Marcellus shale region to go to Reliance. That's $14,167 per acre. The MDU story you posted had MDU acquiring 40,000 acres in the Bakken region. Based on the price Reliance paid, the value of MDU's acreage could be worth as much as $566.7 million.finance.yahoo.com The Bakken lease purchase includes approximately 40,000 net acres with the Three Forks play as the primary target. The acquired leases have three to five year primary terms and increase the company’s acreage position in the Bakken to approximately 56,000 net acres. In the Niobrara oil shale play, the company has signed an agreement to acquire approximately 27,000 net acres with five-year primary lease terms. I am not too sure if the two regions (Bakken vs Marcellus) have similar production profiles but the market seems to be bidding up all shale acreage leases. Any idea what MDU paid per acre for their Bakken share acreage? EKS