Permian Going For $40,000 / Acre -- And Seller Will Throw In Producing Wells And DUCs -- February 12, 2017

I did not post this story earlier because I thought it was "old" story, but I think it's new. It's hard to keep up. From Oil & Gas Journal:

• Parsley Energy acquires another 71,000 acres of the Permian Basin
• $2.8 billion
• about $40,000 / acre
• seller: Ft Worth oil explore, Double Eagle Energy Permian
• Parsley's holdings in the Permian will come to about 227,000 acres
• multiple payzones; crude oil and natural gas
• break-even oil price: $30 to $40 in the Permian
• WTI currently at $53
• minimal transportation costs to the coast, compared to the Bakken
• US Geological Survey:
• shale rock in the Permian is the largest source of shale the agency has ever assessed
• the Permian (Delaware?) could yield 20 billion bbls of oil
• Wolfcamp Shale in Midland area contains an estimated 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 1.6 billion bbls of natural gas liquids, USGS
• "the discovery" is nearly 3x larger than the shale oil found in 2013 in the Bakken and Three Forks (it should be noted that the 2013 study is now an "old" study; it did not take into account deeper benches of the Three Forks; not does it take into account new technology and new completion methods

One comment: based on the linked PennEnergy story one can surmise that the majors, including ExxonMobil made a huge mis-step when the abandoned US on-shore shale to look for deep-water elephants. It's 20-20 hindsight now, but starting about two to four years ago, it was pretty clear what was developing.