Acres

Chesapeake Energy Corp. has reached a deal to sell 78,000 acres in the Haynesville Shale in northern Louisiana to an unnamed private company, the Oklahoma City-based independent announced Monday.

Castleton Commodities International LLC agreed Friday to pay Anadarko Petroleum Corp. $1 billion-plus for upstream and midstream properties in the Carthage producing area of East Texas.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) office in Colorado on Wednesday released an environmental assessment (EA) on its previously announced plans to offer in May up to 100,000 acres for oil and natural gas exploration spread over five counties in the northwestern corner of the state (see Shale Daily,Aug. 10).

Rice Energy Inc. produced 747 MMcfe/d in the third quarter, up 23% from the year ago period.

EQT Corp. said Tuesday that it would spend $683 million for nearly 60,000 net acres in the Appalachian Basin and acquire West Virginia pure-play Trans Energy Inc. in a related tender offer to buy all of the company’s outstanding shares.

Private equity-backed Casillas Petroleum Resource Partners LLC announced a $294 million deal late Monday with Continental Resources Inc. to buy up 30,000 net acres in the SCOOP (South Central Oklahoma Oil Province) of the Anadarko Basin.

Vantage Energy’s Barnett Shale assets are an afterthought for Rice Energy Inc., which said Tuesday it would acquire the company in a $2.7 billion deal. Rice’s top executive said the real “prize of the Vantage acquisition is its large block of core, contiguous Marcellus acres adjacent to our existing Greene County” assets in Pennsylvania.

Rice Energy Inc. said late Monday that it has agreed to acquire Vantage Energy Inc. subsidiaries in a $2.7 billion deal that would give it entry into the Barnett Shale of North Texas and significantly expand its Marcellus and Utica shale position in Greene County, PA, where Vantage had been the largest leaseholder.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on Wednesday conducted its first online lease auction, selling all of its parcels but not disclosing the overall proceeds.