Southwestern Energy Co. (NYSE: SWN) continued to knit up Marcellus and Utica shale following a $4.975 billion blockbuster deal to buy Chesapeake Energy’s (NYSE: CHK) holdings in West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Southwestern said Dec. 23 it had signed another purchase and sale agreement to acquire an undivided 20% of Statoil’s (NYSE: STO) ownership in the southern Marcellus for about $394 million.

Prior to the sale, Chesapeake and Statoil operated a joint venture (JV) together in the Marcellus. In its deal with Southwestern, Statoil agreed to reduce its working interest in nonoperated U.S. Southern Marcellus onshore asset from 29% to 23%.

The two companies have put in place a new joint development agreement.

Southwestern’s financing remains an overhang that could result in Southwestern divesting some properties.

Southwestern took out $5 billion in bridge loans to fund the Chesapeake deal and will likely term out the debt in 2015, said Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co in a report. Combined with the acreage acquired from Chesapeake, Southwestern is adding 443,000 net acres.

“Given weak high yield market conditions, the company may try to divest legacy Ark-La-Tex properties, Fayetteville PDP [proved developed producing] and/or midstream assets,” Tudor’s report said.

The company’s 2015 budget will be released Dec. 30 and cuts may come to the Fayetteville, Southwestern’s new ventures and more moderate plans for drilling the Marcellus due to a weak NGL price outlook.

Statoil’s divested assets in the Marcellus constitute about 30,000 acres. Its Marcellus play production was 130,500 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d), of which about 4,000 barrels (bbl) came from the assets it sold to Southwestern, the company said.

“We are excited to acquire an additional working interest of this premier asset and look forward to a strong partnership with Statoil in this area,” said Steve Mueller, Southwestern chairman and CEO.

Gas Forecast

In Southwestern’s third-quarter earnings call, Mueller said the Marcellus acquisitions will enable the company to grow since it has improved well economics and well inventory increases.

“Yes, gas price is down relative to earlier in the year and yes it will continue to be challenged in next summer but we built that volatility into our 2014 plan and we built into the acquisition economics and we’ll build it in our 2015 plans,” Mueller said at the time.

Mueller said he saw persistent counter points that could change the gas price balance.

“This will be the first winter since 2008 with a total storage less than 3.75 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) and indications are that the storage could be as much as 5% less or about 3.5-3.6 Tcf,” he said. “The ongoing worry is obviously that the 12-month average production has grown at just over 4.3%.”

However, he noted that demand was increasing by about 3.9%.

As of Dec. 19, working gas in storage was 3.25 Tcf, according to estimates by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That is a net decline of 49 Bcf from the previous week. Stocks were 150 Bcf higher than the same time last year but 169 Bcf below the five-year average of 3.42 Tcf.

The Deals

Southwestern announced a $5.375 billion to buy Chesapeake’s gas assets in mid-October. Statoil kept mum about the deal. The company had the ability to quash the transaction or buy the acreage out from under Southwestern under the terms of the Statoil/Chesapeake JV.

When Southwestern’s deal with Chesapeake closed on Dec. 22, the price had fallen $400 million to $4.975 billion.

That extra $400 million may have helped make the Statoil deal easier to digest.

Statoil agreed to sell about 30,000 net acres for just under $400 million. Southwestern’s overall working interest was upped 5.8% to about 73%. When combined with the acreage acquired from Chesapeake, Southwestern will have obtained about 443,000 net acres.

The Statoil deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2015. Southwestern has earmarked its revolving credit facility to finance the purchase.