Enerplus Completes Acquisition

Enerplus announcement to acquire 46,000 net acreage in Fort Berthold Indian Reservation was previously reported. [Update: "anonymous" wrote to tell me the seller was Simray; November 29, 2010.]

This acquisition has now been completed. ERF now has 70,000 net acres in the FBIR area.

ERF has 170,000 net acres in the Saskatchewan Bakken and 197,000 acres in the Marcellus (natural gas).

Production figures blow me away:

Current production from this project is approximately 4,000 bbls/day. As drilling plans are executed over the next five years, production is expected to grow to over 20,000 boe/day.

At  $50/bbl, that's $200,000/day, more than a million/week now; one million dollars/day if price of oil doesn't appreciate over the next five years. 

This is all part of ERF's plan to go corporate. I first got interested in ERF as a high distribution Canadian royalty trust. Due to changing Canadian tax laws, ERF changed its focus. My hunch: max cash return to their investors is in their blood.  ERF's annual operating cash flow is reported to be $740 million.