The Denver Business Journal reports Anschutz sold his Marcellus and Bakken oil and natural gas shale holdings for $3 billion to an unidentified buyer. That story is dated today, October 21, 2010. The DBJ references the Forbes issue hitting newsstands now, with a cover date of November 8, 2010, in which the magazine profiles Anschutz.
The first paragraph of the Forbes story:
Philip Anschutz has reason to shout. His holding company has just sold its oil and gas fields in the Marcellus Shale of Pennsylvania and the Bakken Shale of North Dakota for roughly $3 billion--the biggest payday of his life.Meanwhile, an earlier story at Forbes regarding this story is dated October 5, 2010. In that story, Anschutz' sale of the Marcellus shale was noted but stated the Bakken shale holdings had not yet been sold. In that article, the author low-balled the Marcellus deal at $2 billion but could be higher.
Anschutz had some very, very good acreage in the Fayette and the Cabernet oil fields. My database shows that Anschutz was issued six permits in 2008; 24 in 2009; and, 39 permits in 2010. According to the NDIC website, Anschutz was issued 106 permits (if I counted correctly), many of them going back to the beginning of the current boom. There are a few permits that go back to the 90's -- one each in 1990, 1996, and 1998, for example (again, that was a quick look and I could have missed some). Many of those early wells were wildcats and dry.
The Anschutz story has always fascinated me and one can find much more about Anschutz on this site by using search applications (at the blogsite) including the "bubble cloud" at the very bottom of the blog.
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My Prayer, The Platters
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Other Bakken-related blogs also have very interesting information about Anschutz action in the Bakken, particularly in the Cabernet/Fayette oil fields.
The guessing game begins: who bought Anschutz' holdings in the Bakken. If it was a single buyer of both the Marcellus and the Bakken, I would start with EOG, XOM (XTO), COP (BR), Chesapeake. If it was one of the majors (XOM or COP) this will be a huge story. But if so, why is the buyer still unidentified? These are all public companies. Among private companies, is Slawson big enough to have been able to do this? Wouldn't it be interesting if a Chinese company was the buyer? See comments below.
have you considered a private, or public company from China as the purchaser??
ReplyDeleteYes, in fact, on my drive over to the dentist (for my semi-annual check-up) I thought it could very well be a Chinese company. If so, this is an even bigger story in terms of international interest. I'll update the blog.
ReplyDeleteMaybe MRO They have been very aggresive the last 2 years in aquisitions.
ReplyDeleteMRO certainly has the cash. According to Yahoo!Finance, MRO has $2 billion; cash flow of $5.4 billion/year. But if the buyer was any of these public corporations, it will have to be reported to the SEC as a material event, I would assume. The deal could still be pending, but it just seems with public companies these things are publicized, otherwise risk of insider trading. But we'll see. I'm leaning toward another private company or a foreign company.
ReplyDeleteI had a general queation. I have a small mineral interest in McClean County NW corner under lease with MRO. They had a 1280 acre spacing request before the Oct 20 hearing and withdrew to come back in November so the could have further conversation with commission. Any ideas on what that might mean? It is very close to Parshall and Deep Water Bay in the request it referred to both fields.
ReplyDeleteThanks
You must be referring to Case No. 13367.
ReplyDeleteThere could any number of reasons. I have no experience with the commission's activities regarding dockets. The folks over on the Bakken Shale Discussion Group might have more insight.
However, the first thing I noted was that 5 of the 6 spacing units were not in either designated field; only one spacing unit was. Perhaps they need to separate those out from the others.
They may want the commission to extend the Parshall field or the Deep Water Creek field to encompass the other five units.
I also noted that the case requested just one horizontal well on each spacing unit. Other companies are putting multi-well pads on 1280-acre units. Perhaps MRO wants to put more than one well on some of these spacing units.
But this is way beyond my depth; as noted, I don't have experience with the commission at this level.
it was OXY
ReplyDeleteYou are correct. It was Occidental. I don't know if I ever explicitly stated that in any single posting, but that was the general feeling.
ReplyDeleteSomeone alerted me to OXY very shortly after the deal was announced and sent a comment at another posting.
OXY's new permits in the Bakken are under "OXY USA."