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Restructuration is in a full-speed: Comstock to sell Bakken for $154 million
10/15/21
A $154 million cash purchase agreement has been reached between Northern Oil and Gas and Comstock Resources for the Bakken assets. It expects that deal will go through before the end of November, funded by cash on hand, operating free cash flow, and borrowings under the Northerns revolving credit facility.
The proceeds from these sales will be reinvested by Comstock Resources Inc. into the Haynesville Shale, at which point the company may acquire additional leasehold and fund drilling activities starting in 2022.
This move by Comstock comes as deal activity rises in Louisiana's Haynesville Shale, where Comstock produces most of its energy. There was some expectation this outcome would happen since some oil and gas producers have been looking to sell assets to take advantage of higher commodity prices and to bolster cash reserves on their balance sheets to counter investor pressure for a while now.
In retrospect, the buyer, Northern Oil and Gas Inc., is the one who is going against the herd with the third big purchase in a row. The company acquired some non-operated interests in Texas' Permian Basin for about $102 million and in Pennsylvania's gas-rich Marcellus basin for $126 million earlier this year.
The Bakken assets purchased by Northern are composed of non-operated interests in 436 producing wellbores in North Dakota's counties of Williams, McKenzie, Mountrail, and Dunn, but being operated from the Williston Basin. With a recent six-month average landed production of 6,400 bbl/d from the 427 actually active wells, and an estimate for October alone surpassing 4,500 boe/d, this deal shapes up to be quite a steal.
The company is based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, and attempts to serve as the ideal provider of non-operated working interests in leasehold that operators can avail themselves of. Yet with acquisitions over the past year in the Marcellus Shale and Permian Basin, the firm’s appetite has begun to diversify and grow outside of the Williston Basin, now fully intending to take a bite of Texas shale play.
Northern Oil and Gas Inc.'s borrowing base will increase significantly from this acquisition atop its existing assets. The company expects to fully determine its borrowing base in the mid-fall, ahead of its regularly scheduled redetermination. With a successful outcome in place, Northern will have doubled its shareholder return program in less than five months providing a formidable showing.
With respect to Comstock, it expects to take a pre-tax loss of $130 million to $140 million from this divestiture and will use the sale proceeds to further develop the Haynesville Shale, including speeding up construction on the 13 new DUC wells originally planned for 2022. Acquisition of additional leasehold, as well as funding of extra drilling, is not completely out of the question either.
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A major U.S. shale oil producer is looking to start a land selloff in the lone star state
Pioneer Natural resources is looking to divest properties in the lone star state. According to Rextag, Pioneer’s Delaware assets on sale have a trailing 12 month production of just over 22 MBOE against a total Permian Basin production of almost 212 MBOE. (The sale, if it happens, will effectively lead to a 10% decrease of Pioneer’s asset base in terms of the previous year's production.)
A $2 billion deal saw Dominion Energy sell Questar Pipelines to Southwest Gas
A good asset will not sit on the market for long. After a deal with Berkshire Hathaway fell through, Dominion Energy managed to secure another one for Questar Pipelines in a drop of a hat. And get that, it is better than the former one by more than half a billion! Although not everyone is happy with such decisions, it seems that even Carl Icahn’s complaints won't be able to sway Southwest Gas Holdings’ decision. Though we will have our eyes peeled in any case… If everything goes as planned, a $2 billion deal will be closed before the end of the year.
The Williston Basin is a big area filled with layers of rock that sits next to the Rocky Mountains in western North Dakota, eastern Montana, and the southern part of Saskatchewan in Canada. This area covers roughly 110,000 square miles. Geologically, it's very similar to the Alberta Basin in Canada. People started drilling for oil in the Williston Basin back in 1936, and by 1954, most of the land where oil could likely be found was already claimed for drilling. The Bakken Formation with parts of Montana, North Dakota, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba has become one of only ten oil fields globally to yield over 1 million barrels per day (bpd) since the late 2000s. It is currently the third-largest U.S. shale oilfield, behind the Permian and Eagle Ford. The boom in the Bakken started around September 2008, coinciding with the U.S. housing market crash. The application of new technologies, such as swell packers enabling multiple-stage fracturing, significantly enhanced oil recovery, making the Bakken Formation a key player in the U.S. In 2022, the Bakken oil field saw big improvements in how much oil and gas it could produce. At the start of the year, 27 drilling rigs were working there, more than double the 11 rigs from the start of 2021. Important upgrades included making the Tioga Gas Plant able to process 150 million cubic feet more gas each day, and making the Dakota Access Pipeline bigger, increasing its oil transport capacity from 570,000 to 750,000 barrels every day.
Continental Resources is expanding its operations in the Midland Basin, including taking over some assets that used to belong to Occidental Petroleum. The company plans to use its expertise in exploration in this area.
Equinor and EQT Corporation have agreed that Equinor will exchange its operated assets in the Marcellus and Utica shale formations in Ohio for a stake in EQT’s non-operated interests in the Northern Marcellus formation.