$20,000/Acre in the Eagle Ford, South Texas -- Implications for the Bakken, North Dakota, USA

This story has been all over the print and cable media today: South Korea takes huge position in Eagle Ford oil shale, South Texas, as a partner with Anadarko.

Others can sort out the details, but those details will start out with these three facts:

• $1.55 billion
• 80,000 net acres in the liquids-rich Eagle Ford Shale play
• 16,000 additional prospective net acres for the deeper dry-gas Pearsall Shale, as well as Pearsall opportunities underlying the aforementioned Eagle Ford acreage 

Back-of-the-envelope calculations

• Dividing $1.55 billion by 80,000 net acres = $19,375/acre
• Dividing $1.55 billion by 96,000 net acres = $16,145/acre

The trick now is to find out what else South Korea got that would bring down the price / acre. Certainly, South Korea didn't pay $20,000/acre. Or did they?

Based on what I've read so far, the Eagle Ford has no greater potential than the Bakken (similar at best, but not greater; of course, this has yet to play out; we are very early in the Eagle Ford play).

Based on what I've read so far, the Bakken was much more prepared for development at the start of the boom in 2007. There is much preparatory work yet to be done to fully bring the Eagle Ford to where the Bakken is today.  (The Williston Oil Basin has been continuously worked since 1951; core samples of every well drilled in the basin have been sent to the UND geological library; the world's largest microseismic array).

So, for folks trying to put a value on the Bakken acreage, the Anadarko-South Korea deal is one more data point.