New Player in the Williston Basin: X-Change/Cress Oil -- Hip-Hop comes to The Bakken

Updates

April 27, 2012: it's a bit hard to sort out exactly what is being said here. It doesn't sound like new (additional) acreage, but assets necessary to develop existing acreage.

...through its subsidiary Cress Oil, Inc., an independent exploration and production company based in Houston, Texas that it plans to close on $75 million for working interest and additional expenditures to initiate drilling projects planned for their acreage position in the Bakken Shale and Three Forks formation. 

That is correct; later in the press release, a spokesman said that the overall acreage had not changed: 109,000 mineral acres, and does not state whether this is gross or net.

April 17, 2012: X-Change/Cress teamed up with Nomad in the Bakken, at Rigzone. 

X-Change Corporation announced through its subsidiary, Cress Oil, Inc. a joint venture with Nomad Energy, Inc. to provide drilling, and well services in the newly acquired 109,000 mineral acreage position in the Bakken Shale and Three Forks formation [note mineral acreage in original press release]. Cress Oil expects to lay out more than $200 million in capital expenditures to explore and produce on the newly acquired mineral acreage throughout the next five years.

Later: I'm slipping. In the "old" days I would have done the quick research to find this information before posting, but "anon 1" pointed me in the right direction. Cress Oil is a wholly-owned subsidiary of X-Change Corporation. X-Change announced the formation of Cress Oil on March 14, 2012.

According to the Yahoo profile:

The X-Change Corporation, through its subsidiary, Old West Entertainment Corp., focuses on hip-hop entertainment businesses in the United States. It specializes in various aspects of entertainment, such as music, developing new artists, movies, TV shows, and concert, as well as event promotion activities. The company also operates a Sunday night drive radio show. The X-Change Corporation was incorporated in 1969 and is based in Dallas, Texas. 

Sounds like Yahoo needs to update the X-Change profile.

Original Post

Link here to PennEnergy.

Press release data points:

• X-Change Corporation, through subsidiary Cress Oil, Inc (Houston, TX)
• Cress Oil; wholly owned subsidiary of X-Change; new company announced March 14, 2012
• acquired > 44,000 net acres in Bakken and Three Forks formation; North Dakota and Montana
• $31 million/44,000 --> $700/acre
• will drill 2 - 4 wells/year for first three years
• 30 - 40 years of drilling for the region as a whole
• CEO says 6 to 24 billion recoverable bbls in the Bakken/Three Forks

This was the most important data point, and I quote verbatim:

While there is more total oil available in the Bakken, a greater percentage can be recovered from the Three Forks formation, which is now considered a separate formation from the Bakken. The Three Forks area is below the upper Bakken shale zone and opens up for new opportunities for resource plays. The Bakken shale continues to expand into areas like Three Forks causing total Bakken oil reserve estimates to go up.