American Energy Partners has made a deal to buy around 56,000 acres from Exxon Mobil and Paloma Partners. That will make them one of the most dominent names in the southern Utica Shale area. That’s because of their previous deal to buy 74,000 Utica Shale acres from Hess Corporation. That purchase put them back by almost a hundred million dollars. American Energy’s total acreage in that area is now around 260,000 acres. American Energy Partners is located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The company has not disclosed how much it paid for the latest purchase of 56,000 acres, but they are now the most prevalent explorers in the southern Utica Shale region.
The lease hold that was announced by American Energy in October is now more than double what they originally targeted. They raised $1.7 billion for this purchase and was originally targeting the Ohio formation. Based upon studies and data that was made available by Bloomberg Industries, drilling for natural gas and byproducts like propane and ethane have increased by five times the original amount. “It’s obvious that Aubrey is going to get very active again,” T. Boone Pickens, who is part of an investment company that sold a half a million shares in Chesapeake in 2012. “We’ll see where we go from there.”
American Energy’s plan includes about 2700 gross well and 1600 net well during the next ten years. The principal investor in this venture is Energy & Minerals Group in Houston. Other investors include First Reserve Corporation. The majority of the acreage that was acquired by American Energy – about 90 percent – is in the core of the Utica deposit, and includes the counties of Jefferson, Belmont, Guernsey, Harrison, Monroe and Noble counties according to the statement released by the company. Exxon also released a statement, saying that American Energy was the highest bidder for another 30,000 acres that is operated by a subsidiary called XTO Energy.
