Locator: 51371B.
WTI: $78.89.
New wells reporting:
- Tuesday, August 11, 2026: 26 for the month, 67 for the quarter, 411 for the year,
- None.
- Monday, August 10, 2026: 26 for the month, 67 for the quarter, 411 for the year,
- 42018, conf, Phoenix Operating, Gail Arnold 33-28-21 5H-ll,
- 42016, conf, Phoenix Operating, Gail Arnold 33-2-21 3H,
- 41433, conf, Whiting, Jefferson Federal 5003 42-14 3B,
- 41432, conf, Whiting, Jefferson Federal 5003 42-14 2B,
- Sunday, August 9, 2026: 22 for the month, 63 for the quarter, 416 for the year,
- 42017, conf, Phoenix Operating, Gail Arnold 33-28-21 4H,
- 42015, conf, Phoenix Operating, Gail Arnold 33-28-21 1H,
- 42014, conf, Phoenix Operating, Gail Arnold 33-28-21 1H,
- Saturday, August 8, 2026: 19 for the month, 60 for the quarter, 413 for the year,
- None.
RBN Energy: big-name M&A in upstream sector may have paused, but big-dollar deals continue. Link here. Archived.
There has been no 11-figure M&A in the upstream space since Devon Energy and Coterra Energy announced their $21.4 billion merger in early February, just a few weeks before the U.S. and Israel initiated their coordinated attack on Iran and the Iranian government responded by closing the Strait of Hormuz. Other somewhat smaller — but still noteworthy — acquisitions have continued to happen, however, with their counterparties willing to move forward despite the uncertainties the Iran war and Hormuz closure have brought to global markets. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look at a few of the largest upstream transactions happening “under the radar” in recent months.
In the half-year since we examined the Devon Energy/Coterra Energy deal, we’ve looked at upstream M&A through two lenses — first with a focus on efforts by E&Ps to divest assets that weren’t core to their strategies and then (in a two-part series) by zeroing in on producer M&A in the Anadarko, a region that had long been out of the spotlight. Today, we discuss a handful of significant deals that have been announced during the on-and-off war with Iran.
The standout transaction is Magnolia Oil & Gas’s cash-and-stock acquisition of WildFire Energy, which was announced on July 20 and is expected to close by mid-September. Valued at about $4.1 billion, the transaction will bring together the two largest oil and gas producers in the northeastern reaches of the Eagle Ford and, more specifically, the Giddings Field, an area where horizontal drilling was pioneered in the 1980s and ’90s and which is now in a resurgence.
As shown in Figure 1 below, the E&Ps’ assets are highly concentrated and highly complementary — more so than just about any M&A we’ve seen lately. Most of the pro forma company’s roughly 1.25 million net acres (gold, teal and striped gold-and-teal areas) are located within eight South Texas counties: Brazos, Burleson, Fayette, Grimes, Lee, Madison, Robertson and Washington.
Magnolia Oil & Gas and WildFire Energy’s Acreage in the Northeastern Eagle Ford
