Category

Bakken Shale

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April 26, 2024 Mergers, Acquisitions, & Divestitures

The Beginning of a Bakken Behemoth

Chord Energy and Enerplus

In a significant development for the energy industry, on February 21, 2024, Chord Energy Corporation and Enerplus Corporation announced a definitive agreement to merge. This strategic combination aims to create a powerhouse in the Williston Basin, leveraging their complementary strengths and operational expertise. But acquisitions are not the only transactions happening in the Bakken. The University of North Dakota received substantial federal funding to investigate the potential of utilizing captured carbon dioxide to enhance oil recovery in the Bakken. As these narratives develop, only time will tell how both will shape the future of the area.

September 30, 2022

Bakken Regains Its Footing

The economics of Oil & Gas production vary by region. Mercer Capital focuses on trends in the Eagle Ford, Permian, Bakken, and Marcellus and Utica plays. The cost of producing oil and gas depends on the geological makeup of the reserve, depth of reserve, and cost to transport the raw crude to market. We can observe different costs in different regions depending on these factors. This quarter we take a closer look at the Bakken.

September 21, 2022 Mergers, Acquisitions, & Divestitures

Bakken M&A

Increased Transaction Volume Continues into 2022

M&A transaction activity in the Bakken increased through year-to-date 2022 relative to the same time period in 2021 and consisted of a handful of large deals and numerous small deals. In this post, we discuss Bakken transaction activity as a whole and also dive deeper into the two largest Bakken transactions made this year.

April 22, 2022 Eagle Ford Shale Marcellus and Utica Shale Permian Basin Special Topics Valuation Issues

E&P Capital Expenditures Set to Rise, but Remain Below Pre-Pandemic Levels

The upstream oil and gas sector is highly capital intensive; production requires expensive equipment and constant maintenance. Despite higher oil and gas prices, E&P operators have refrained from increasing capital investment, and instead, are delivering cash to shareholders. In this post, we explore recent capex trends in the oil & gas industry and the outlook for 2022 through 28 selected public companies.

April 8, 2022 Permian Basin

Private Oil Company Values Are Readying For Take Off: While Publics Remain On Runway

As the term “energy security” comes back into the public lexicon, the values of US oil companies are rising. The current price expectations of oil make a lot of reserves economically attractive, however the market participants best positioned to seize upon this dynamic are not public oil companies. Private firms are leading the way in this area, and as such, values of private companies are positioned to grow faster than the publics.

January 27, 2022 Eagle Ford Shale Permian Basin Special Topics

Q1-Q3 2021 Themes From Oilfield Service Company Earnings Calls

As our readers are well aware, Mercer Capital tracks and reviews themes from the quarterly earnings calls of E&P operators and mineral aggregators, providing key insights into the upstream perspective on U.S. oil and gas. 

In this post, we look at oilfield service (OFS) company earnings calls for the first three quarters of 2021. 

September 23, 2021 Special Topics

Bakken Recovery Falters

The economics of Oil & Gas production vary by region. Mercer Capital focuses on trends in the Eagle Ford, Permian, Bakken, and Marcellus and Utica plays. The cost of producing oil and gas depends on the geological makeup of the reserve, depth of reserve, and cost to transport the raw crude to market. We can observe different costs in different regions depending on these factors.

September 16, 2021 Mergers, Acquisitions, & Divestitures

Bakken M&A

Transaction Volume and Deal Size Rebound in 2021

Over the last year, deal activity in the Bakken has been steadily increasing after a challenging 2020.  Eight of the nine deals, in the last twelve months, occurred in the last eight months as the price environment has turned more favorable.  As the industry seems optimistic that the worst of COVID-19 is behind us, deal activity may continue to increase into next year, but there is always hesitation, especially with the Delta variant on the rise.

June 24, 2021 Eagle Ford Shale Permian Basin Special Topics

Permian Production Pushes Higher

The economics of Oil & Gas production vary by region. The cost of producing oil and gas depends on the geological makeup of the reserve, depth of reserve, and cost to transport the raw crude to market. We can observe different costs in different regions depending on these factors. In this post, we take a closer look at the Permian.

September 23, 2020

Bakken Production Has Rebounded, But Operating Challenges Remain Acute

The economics of oil and gas production vary by region. Mercer Capital focuses on trends in the Eagle Ford, Permian, Bakken, and Marcellus and Utica plays. The cost of producing oil and gas depends on the geological makeup of the reserve, depth of reserve, and cost to transport the raw crude to market. We can observe different costs in different regions depending on these factors. In this post, we take a closer look at the Bakken.

September 16, 2020 Current Events Mergers, Acquisitions, & Divestitures

M&A in the Bakken

Immense Drop in Deal Activity Due to COVID Concerns

Over the past several years, the Bakken has generally had much lighter acquisition and divestiture activity than other major basins in the United States.  Given that deal activity across the energy sector has dropped an immense 42.7% over the past year, acquisition and divestiture activity has dropped even further in this basin over the past year. Observed deal activity has largely been the result of Northern Oil and Gas growing its production base in the area during the past several years.

October 31, 2019 Valuation Issues

Pipeline Bottlenecks And Worthless Acreage: The Downsides Of World-Leading Oil Production

Oil and gas production in the U.S. continues to grow. Last year the U.S. unseated Russia and Saudi Arabia as the world’s leading oil producer on a daily production basis. Side effects currently include choke points in pipeline capacity and a drop in prices for undeveloped oil and gas acreage.

October 18, 2019

M&A in the Bakken

Deals May Be Slow, But Production Remains Steady

Acquisition and divestiture activity in the Bakken for last twelve months has been minimal. The lack of deals, however, does not mean that activity or production hasn’t been meaningful. In fact, production has grown approximately 10% year-over-year through September with new well production per rig increasing over 29%. Also, while other major basins have been decreasing rig counts, the Bakken has remained steady year-over-year as of the end of September.

October 9, 2019

Bakken May Lack Flash, But Has Fundamentals

The economics of oil and gas production vary by region. The cost of producing oil and gas depends on the geological makeup of the reserve, depth of reserve, and cost to transport the raw crude to market. We can observe different costs in different regions depending on these factors. In this post, we take a closer look at the Bakken Shale.

September 26, 2018

Bakken Business

Companies that have maintained a presence in the Bakken since the downturn in oil prices are beginning to reap the rewards of their patience. Rising oil prices have begat increases in production, and efficiencies gained in recent years have led to higher margins and increased production. As noted in last week’s post about transaction activity in the region, while the Permian Basin has received much of the attention recently, the Bakken certainly appears to be back in business.

September 17, 2018 Mergers, Acquisitions, & Divestitures

M&A in the Bakken

Under the Radar

Over the past year, followers of the oil and gas industry have taken note of the multitude of transactions occurring in the Permian Basin with large deal values and hefty multiples. But the price differential between WTI and other benchmarks has grown over the last few months, and some attention has moved from the Permian to other domestic shale plays. The activity in other regions such as the Bakken was at one point slow (when compared to the Permian) causing the recent increase in production and the swapping of acreage to fly under the radar while many were focused on Texas.

December 18, 2017

A Tale of Two Bakkens: Cashing Out or Doubling Down

Transaction activity in the Bakken shale was both busy and revealing in the second half of 2017.  Many of these deals marked the departure of a number of companies that were known to be active in the play, particularly Halcon Resources. Other companies, however, have remained. This post digs deeper into this.

January 16, 2017 Eagle Ford Shale Mergers, Acquisitions, & Divestitures Permian Basin

2016 M&A Overview

As oil and gas prices remained low, deal volume picked up in the beginning of 2016 as companies were forced to sell assets in order to quickly generate cash to pay off debt and avoid bankruptcy. As the year continued, M&A activity increased and total deal value at the end of 2016 doubled that of 2015.

January 2, 2017

Quick Facts: Bakken

Each quarter, Mercer Capital’s Exploration & Production Industry newsletter provides an overview of the E&P sector, including world demand and supply, public market performance, valuation multiples for public companies, and a region focus. Mercer Capital closely follows oil and gas trends in the Permian Basin, Eagle Ford Shale, Bakken Shale, and Marcellus and Utica Shale. Last quarter our E&P newsletter, focused on the Bakken Shale. Today, we take a step back and review the broad characteristics of the Bakken Shale.

December 12, 2016 Valuation Issues

Exploration & Production 3Q16 Newsletter | Region Focus: Bakken

Each quarter, Mercer Capital’s Exploration & Production Industry newsletter provides an overview of the E&P sector, including world demand and supply, public market performance, valuation multiples for public companies, and a region focus. This quarter we focus on the Bakken Shale.

June 27, 2016 Bankruptcy

M&A Activity in the Bakken

In order to survive, when producing is no longer economically feasible, production companies are selling “non-core” assets to generate the cash. M&A activity of Bakken assets has slowed in 2016, but most Bakken assets are selling for heavy discounts making them attractive to buyers. This posts discusses some of these transactions in light of the current environment.

May 30, 2016 Bankruptcy Valuation Issues

Bridging Valuation Gaps: Part 1

Due to a precipitous drop in oil prices since June 2014, oil exploration and production companies in the US have struggled to pay their debts and in many cases have had to file for bankruptcy. This is the first post in a three part series examining how option pricing, a sophisticated valuation technique, can be used to understand the future potential of the assets most affected by low prices, PUDs and unproven reserves.