Until recently, the Eagle Ford Shale has become 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 Keanu Reeves’ film character John Wick might respond, “Yeah, I’m thinking it’s back.”

The large $1.3 billion clue dropped in everyone’s lap on May 17 was EnerVest’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 it wouldn’t be a surprise 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.

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

“It allows for pretty intriguing and interesting investment thesis from the ‘acquire and exploit’ model,” he said.

The Eagle Ford is essentially locked up in the hands of a “select few” operators, with EOG Resources (NYSE: EOG) the dominant force in the region.

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

“There’s not eagerness, but there is a willingness to sell noncore assets,” Teal CEO John Roby told Hart Energy.

That marks a significant change from 2015, when proud Eagle Ford producers swatted away deal proposals before they floated above sea level.

Operators in the Eagle Ford are realizing that to bolster balance sheets and sell assets, noncore packages need to have a sense of intrigue about them, Roby said.

Teal’s experience is interconnected to Texas’ Permian and Eagle Ford geography. Roby is the former CFO of Titanium Exploration Partners and spent several years at Occidental Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: OXY). Teal’s team includes chief geologist Neil Basu and COO John King, both formerly at Pioneer Natural Resources (NYSE: PXD).

“This isn’t unique to Eagle Ford but 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 portfolio.”

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

Unlike the Midland and Delaware basins, with at least $1 billion in announced transactions since January, Eagle Ford deals have been waning. 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 private Houston-based Carrier Energy Partners II. Carrier paid $190 million for the Karnes County, Texas, interest.

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

But in practical terms, Roby doesn’t expect to pick up a block of contiguous acreage. The Karnes assets sold by BlackBrush Oil and Gas LP and GulfTex Energy to EnerVest are within the volatile-oil and black- oil fairway. The acreage wasn’t contiguous but EnerVest didn’t put a discount on the assets because they spread out, 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.

With redeterminations still looming for some companies and write-offs of reserve value in the billions of dollars, Roby said cash offers are likely to be taken seriously. Development plans have also morphed. Horizons are no longer five to10 years but may be anywhere from a decade to 30 years.

“As these companies high grade their portfolio and live within cash flow, there is opportunity for a company such as Teal to come in and acquire assets that are deemed noncore,” 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, its appealing is that much of the acreage is held by production (HBP), “which gives you optionality in this price environment,” Roby said.

Worth noting: the leviathans of the Eagle Ford are continuing to soldier on. In early May, EOG said it internally developed EOR process was a success and that it would add another pilot project of 32 wells in 2016.

Darren Barbee can be reached at dbarbee@hartenergy.com.