Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. has grown its Eagle Ford Shale position by 6,820 net acres to more than 81,000 and added 93 net wells to its drilling inventory of more than 915 net locations in the play through a $243 million cash deal with Eagle Ford Minerals LLC, the Houston-based company said Monday.

The acquisition represents an approximate 25% working interest in certain Eagle Ford Shale properties that were already operated by Carrizo. Now that the deal has closed, with an effective date of Oct. 1, Carrizo holds an approximate 100% working interest in the assets.

Carrizo estimates net proved reserves associated with the acquisition to be 16.7 million boe (82% oil) and net 2P potential to be 39.0 million boe (80% oil). The acreage acquired is in the company’s three main project areas and is centrally located to the most prospective portion of the Eagle Ford’s volatile oil window, Carrizo said. Third quarter net production from the acquired properties was 2,260 b/d and 2,457 MMcfe/d.

“While Carrizo has not historically been active in the acquisition of producing properties, we felt this was a perfect deal for the company,” said CEO Chip Johnson. “The acquisition adds an incremental 25% working interest in three of our four highest-return areas within the Eagle Ford Shale, and adds a significant amount of undrilled potential in addition to the existing production. We believe the purchase price is very attractive based on the market value of producing and non-producing assets in the area, and expect the acquisition to be immediately accretive on a variety of financial metrics, including cash flow and earnings per share.”

In conjunction with the acquisition, Carrizo’s banking syndicate increased the company’s borrowing base to $800 million from $675 million.

The company said third quarter production was 33,587 boe/d, an increase of 12% versus the third quarter of 2013 and 1% versus the prior quarter. The year-over-year production growth was driven by strong results in each of the Carrizo’s operating regions, which more than offset the sale of the company’s remaining natural gas-weighted Barnett Shale properties during the fourth quarter of 2013 (see Shale Daily, Sept. 10, 2013), Carrizo said.

Oil production during the third quarter averaged 20,000 b/d, an increase of 64% versus the third quarter of 2013 and 8% versus the prior quarter; natural gas and natural gas liquids production averaged 81.5 MMcfe/d during the third quarter. Third quarter production exceeded the high end of company guidance mainly due to strong performance from the Eagle Ford and a lower-than-expected amount of voluntary production curtailments in the Marcellus Shale assets, Carrizo said.