BCE-Mach LLC, launched only weeks ago to target Midcontinent development, said Monday it was the buyer of Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s Mississippian Lime assets in Oklahoma, which it sold for $500 million.

BCE-Mach is a partnership formed by Oklahoma City-based Mach Resources and Houston-based private equity partner Bayou City Energy Management LLC (BCE). Mach CEO and founder Tom Ward had co-founded Chesapeake and went on to form SandRidge Energy Inc. and other energy explorers.

The first transaction by BCE-Mach from producing acreage in Woods and Alfalfa counties, is “well delineated plays with extensive inventory for future drilling locations,” Ward said. “On a full-cycle economics basis, this play competes with any in the Lower 48.”

The assets are in an area that Ward knows well, as SandRidge also was developing the play. Chesapeake in February had said it was selling the properties, part of a continued push to streamline its portfolio.

BCE managing partner Will McMullen said the Anadarko Basin properties are the type of opportunity the partnership would be targeting, calling it an “excellent strategy fit.”

Chesapeake and BCE-Mach have obtained authorization from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to transfer the pipeline capacity rights in the assets being sold to allow gas supplies to continue to flow to downstream markets.