Antero Resources Corporation, a Denver, Colo based oil and gas production company, has acquired Bluestone Energy Partners, a privately held West Virginia natural gas producer. Antero has extensive experience in the Rocky Mountains and mid-continental US. Founded in 2003 by Paul Rady, a geologist, and Glen Warren, an investment banker, the company website boasts that this private company is the 2nd largest producer in the Barnett shale play.
Ellenboro, WV based Bluestone Energy Partners, a leasing and drilling company, was headed by Sam Ross, Mike Hall and Gregory Barton, who now hold an equity position in Antero as part of the buy-out deal. The Bluestone assets include properties with production from 93 vertical wells and 3 horizontals wells, gathering and compression assets, and approximately 40,000 net acres in the Marcellus shale play in West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Following the close of this acquisition on December 1, 2010, Antero controls approximately 168,000 net acres in the Marcellus Shale play. That’s a small number relative to the holdings of big players EQT, Range Resources and Chesapeake Energy. Chesapeake, for example, holds 1.3 million net acres.
Click here for full press release, including financial terms of the acquisition.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
The Halls drilling and Bluestone Energy companies for YEARS touted themselves as the “home town boys” who employed the locals and spoke through golden lips to the surface owners with all kinds of reassurances that “they were there for them” and would “take care of them”. Doddridge and Harrison counties have been polluted and wrecked and now they have sold out to one of the major polluters in Western Colorado. The “Halls drilling spill” that was discovered in Buckeye Creek Doddridge County in Aug 09, was never explained by Halls drilling nor accounted for.
This shale play reminds me of the historic Holland tulip bulb speculative bubble. Many of the publicly traded gas production companies are not operating in the black yet. They are relying on the price of natural gas to escalate in future years. According to blogger Dave Cohen in Decline of the Empire, 11-16-10, “In other words, the smaller operators, who leased far more acreage than they could ever develop, have hyped shale gas to keep their share prices up, and dangled themselves before the majors as merger & acquisition targets.”
Is Anteros positioning itself as another candidate for acquisition by an even bigger fish? Hmmm……..
The Anteros website claims that they take pride in developing with ” a commitment to safety and limited disturbance”. Now that would be a breath of fresh air.
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