Until recently, the Eagle Ford Shale was a no man’s land for deals, as the Permian Basin’s favorite children—the Midland and the Delaware—swallowed up A&D activity.

But lately the question is whether the Eagle Ford—a mature play—is back.

As a character in a recent Keanu Reeves’ action flick might respond, “Yeah, I’m thinking it’s back.”

A $1.3 billion clue dropped in everyone’s lap on May 17: EnerVest Ltd.’s announcement that it had three deals in place in Karnes County, Texas, with production of 17,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (Mboe/d).

Last August, EnCap Investments LP director Scott R. Smetko said that he wouldn’t be surprised to see the industry “shift back to the acquire-and-exploit model” of past years. On a small scale, a new E&P, Teal Natural Resources LLC, is proposing to do just that, potentially in the Eagle Ford.

Teal is intent on buying assets underpinned by PDP reserves to create value through operational efficiencies.

“It allows for a pretty intriguing and interesting investment thesis from the acquire-and-exploit model,” Smetko said.

The Eagle Ford is essentially locked up in the hands of a “select few” operators, he said, with EOG Resources Inc. the dominant force.

While the Eagle Ford isn’t about to break up, commodity prices may jog loose a few thousand acres here and there. Production from the shale has plummeted 21% since April 2015, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data.

“There’s not eagerness, but there is a willingness to sell assets within the core of the Eagle Ford that are noncore within a company’s portfolio,” Teal CEO John Roby told Hart Energy.

That marks a significant change from 2015, when proud Eagle Ford producers swatted away deal proposals.

Operators in the Eagle Ford are realizing that to bolster balance sheets and sell assets, packages need to have allure, Roby said.

Teal’s experience is rooted in Texas’ Permian and Eagle Ford geography. Roby is the former CFO of Titanium Exploration Partners LLC and spent several years at Occidental Petroleum Corp. Teal’s team includes chief geologist Neil Basu and COO John King, both alumni of Pioneer Natural Resources Co.

“This isn’t unique to the Eagle Ford but [also applies to] other areas where it’s good rock,” Roby said. “I believe assets are going to hit the market as companies look to high grade their portfolios.”

Teal’s plan is to come in with maximum flexibility to do deals whether through farm-ins, other types of joint ventures or outright acquisitions. The company was recently backed by a $125 million commitment from two private equity firms—Pearl Energy Investments and Natural Gas Partners.

Unlike in the Midland and Delaware basins, where at least $1 billion in transactions have been announced since January, deals in the Eagle Ford have waned. EnerVest’s announcement aside, few transactions have been publicly announced this year.

Perhaps the most notable deal was in January, when Australia’s AWE Ltd. said it would sell its 10% working interest in the Eagle Ford Sugarloaf area to Houston-based private E&P Carrier Energy Partners II. Carrier paid $190 million for the Karnes County interest.

Teal will aim for smaller opportunities, with optimal transactions around $50 million, but will also pursue deals as small as $5 million. If the right asset presents itself, Teal may consider a deal for a few hundred million given the strength of its financial sponsors.

In practical terms, Roby doesn’t anticipate picking up a block of contiguous acreage but does expect to maintain a disciplined approach to asset selection. The Karnes assets sold by BlackBrush Oil &Gas LP and GulfTex Energy to EnerVest are within the volatile-oil and black-oil fairway. The acreage wasn’t contiguous but was geographically concentrated. As such, EnerVest didn’t put a discount on the assets, Roby said.

John B. Walker, EnerVest’s CEO, said the acreage’s attraction was the stacked reservoirs of the Lower Eagle Ford, the Upper Eagle Ford and the Austin Chalk. Blocky just didn’t matter.

Redeterminations still loom for some companies, and write-offs of reserve value are in the billions of dollars as the industry continues to be rocked by the downturn. Roby said cash offers are likely to be taken seriously.

Development plans have also morphed. Horizons are no longer five to10 years but anywhere from a decade to 30 years. “As these companies high grade their portfolios and live within cash flow, there is opportunity for a company such as Teal to come in and acquire assets that are deemed noncore to an existing portfolio,” Roby said. “Cash being a premium in this low-price environment definitely should help us out.”

While the Eagle Ford is among many basins with opportunities, it has additional appeal because much of its acreage is held by production.

That means the ability to wait out prices—and in this price environment, options are everything.