OXY Rumor -- September 28, 2015

Updates

November 27, 2015: Lime Rock Resources announces the deal is closed on Russian Creek acquisition. 

October 16, 2015: sold. 300,000 acres for $500 million.  $1700/acre (rounded). See Lime Rock Resources. 

Earlier Posts

 
Link.

Flashback:

February 2, 2015:  MDU sale of assets to Lime Rock: Fidelity Exploration transferred about 81 gross wells, of which 49 are operated by Fidelity to Lime Rock Resources III-A. All of these were in Mountrail County; 6 in Alger field, 43 in Stanley field. The sale included 4,363 acres with production of about 2,000 bopd. The earlier permit/well file number was #17359; the most recent permit/well file number was #27192. According to the NDIC, Lime Rock has 51 wells/permits, so this is a new operator in North Dakota, also. Or it appears to be a new operator. If this is their website, the company previously had three core areas, all outside of the Bakken (mid-continent -- Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi); the Permian Basin; and, the Texas Gulf Coast). If this is the right company, this is their first property in the Bakken. [Update: Don sent me the link to the original press release which provides more background information: http://www.mdu.com/news/2014/07/21/mdu-resources-announces-sale-of-certain-mountrail-county-north-dakota-production-assets.]

This is not an investment site. Do not make any investment or financial decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. I do not trade or invest in OXY and don't know anyone who does.

Lime Rock Resources.

I track major Bakken operators here and other Bakken operators here. To some extent, it is arbitrary on which list a Bakken operator may appear. Generally once on the "major Bakken operator" list, they are not removed, even if they are no longer operating. On the other hand, operators on the "other" will occasionally be moved to the "major" list. Again, often arbitrary.

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Background -- OXY And The Bakken

Back on February 8, 2015, in Petroleum News, OXY announced it has no plans for further Bakken development in 2015. See page 5 of this 16-page pdf.  In that article, OXY said its Bakken returns were sub-par; and, that OXY would focus on the Permian in this country, and overseas, it would focus on the Mideast.

The article also noted that OXY considered selling its 330,000 Bakken acreage back in 2013; most of OXY's acreage is in south-central and west-central Dunn County with a small amount in southeast Burke County. Then OXY backed off but then in October, 2014, Bloomberg reported that OXY might see its Bakken acreage for as much as $3 billion ($3 billion / 330,000 = $9,000/acre).