It was the unique opportunity Bill Barrett had been looking for, according to CEO Scott Woodall. The company had been unwinding its portfolio and seeking to expand its core D-J Basin asset base. Now its $649 million merger with Fifth Creek Energy will enable Bill Barrett to nearly double its position. The two companies said they’ll become subsidiaries of a newly-formed public E&P exclusively focused on oil-weighted rural areas in the D-J. Preliminary 2018 plans for the new company include running three drilling rigs with anticipated production of 11 million to 12 million barrels of oil equivalent and capex between $500 million and $600 million.

It’s official. Energy Corp. of America (ECA) management and employees are now Greylock Energy employees. That’s following a private equity deal, backed by ArcLight Partners, for ECA’s massive Marcellus upstream and midstream assets that closed last week. Kyle Mork, former CEO of ECA who now leads Greylock, said in an interview with Hart Energy’s Darren Barbee that he expects the company to remain focused on the Marcellus in the near term, where ECA has 100 producing wells. But, he added, Greylock has good exposure to the Utica and though that’s exciting for the future of the company he doesn’t think they’ll be drilling a Utica well next month.

Back from last week’s OPEC meeting in Vienna, Stratas Advisors Director of Energy Markets Jeff Quigley sat down with Jessica Morales at the Hart Energy headquarters in Houston to discuss the after effects of OPEC’s latest agreement to extend production cuts along with other non-OPEC nations. Quigley answers the question; Is OPEC thinking differently about U.S. shale? “OPEC’s kind of flipped response about shale. They are not concerned about shale outwardly. We know they are concerned about it within the confines of OPEC itself, but I would watch how their narrative on shale changes over the course of the year. They seem to be very much of the belief that shale is not going to be able to meet rising global demand over the next three to five years, that new sources of conventional production from OPEC and non-OPEC countries is going to be necessary,” he said.