Chisholm Oil & Gas LLC and Apollo Global Management LLC (NYSE: APO) formed a strategic partnership as the E&P closed on 53,000 acres in Kingfisher County, Okla., in the Stack Play, the companies said March 29.
Apollo invested in Chisholm’s acquisition and “has the opportunity” to invest a total of $900 million in the company to develop its existing assets and bolt-on deals. Chisholm management is also backing the venture.
Chisholm’s deal includes 53,000 acres in and around Kingfisher with average production of 3,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. The nature of the acreage, including reserves, purchase price and seller were not disclosed. A message left with Chisholm was not returned.
The acreage is in the same area where Gastar Exploration Inc. (NYSE MKT: GST) purchased working and net revenue interests in 9.5 net producing wells and 5,670 net acres of additional Stack oil and gas leasehold interests in Kingfisher for about $51.4 million. The deal closed March 22.
Chisholm, based in Tulsa, Okla., is led by CEO Robert M. Zinke, who founded Zenergy Inc.
Zenergy was one of the first upstream operators to apply horizontal drilling in the Williston Basin–including the Mission Canyon, Poe and East Fork fields–becoming a first mover in the North Dakota Bakken/Three Forks Play. In September 2010, Oasis Petroleum Inc. (NYSE: OAS) purchased about 16,700 net acres from Zenergy and Garden Isle Investments for about $50 million.
Zenergy was also active in Montana’s Nesson Anticline, where it drilled 200 horizontal wells. Since 2003, Zinke and his team have managed $1.15 billion in equity capital across six major projects, netting investors an aggregate 3.5x invested capital and generating more than $2.8 billion in total profits.
As of March 15, Zenergy is still listed as an active operator by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, according to state records. The company is also active in eight states, the Gulf of Mexico and three provinces in Canada as well as the U.K., Portugal, Israel and Nigeria, according to a profile of Zinke on a University of Oklahoma website.
Zinke said he will work with Apollo’s managed funds to build a premier, Stack-focused independent E&P business.
“We believe the Stack has some of the best geology of any shale play in the U.S., and Chisholm has tremendous growth potential given the multiple oil-weighted target formations, repeatable results and high single-well economics,” he said.
Geoff Strong, senior partner at Apollo, said the Chisholm team will seek to expand its business through the drillbit and through add-on acquisitions.
“We’re confident that Chisholm will execute its strategy given the team’s long history of successful operations in the basin,” he said. “We are delighted Apollo’s managed funds have the opportunity to invest alongside Bob [Zinke] and his team.”
Apollo regulatory filings show that the company had $25.9 billion of capital available for investment in February.
Darren Barbee can be reached at dbarbee@hartenergy.com.
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