More funds for the Haynesville.......
Sept. 2 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc, Europe's second-largest oil company, agreed to buy Arkansas natural-gas properties from Chesapeake Energy Corp. for $1.9 billion as high energy prices make drilling from hard-to-access shale deposits profitable.
BP will take a 25 percent in the Fayetteville Shale joint venture with Chesapeake in Arkansas. The purchase follows BP's $1.75 billion acquisition of Chesapeake's assets in the Woodford Shale formation in Oklahoma in July.
``Development of these resources, along with our leading position in coal bed methane production, and our extensive tight gas plays throughout North America, will enhance BP's position as a leader in 'unconventional' gas technology,'' Andy Inglis, BP's chief executive of exploration and production, said today in an e-mailed statement.
Oil majors are scrambling to target fuel from rock formations that are more costly to exploit than traditional fields. Such so-called shale plays were made more profitable this year as gas prices outpaced crude oil. Royal Dutch Shell Plc, BP's larger rival, recently completed the purchase of Canadian shale gas producer Duvernay Oil Corp. for $5.8 billion.
The latest purchase will ``enable growth of our North American onshore natural gas production'' from 470,000 barrels a day of oil equivalent, Inglis said. ``BP has made a strategic entry into three top tier shale plays in North America'' with estimated resources of 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent in the Haynesville, Woodford and Fayetteville fields.
Additional Leasehold
Chesapeake plans to continue acquiring leasehold in the Fayetteville Shale play and BP will have the right to a 25 percent participation in any additional leasehold, the companies said today in a statement.
At the same time, competition for gas shale assets in the Louisiana and Texas-based Haynesville formation is increasing.
In July, Chesapeake agreed to sell to Plains Exploration & Production Co., a Houston-based oil and gas producer, a 20 percent stake in the Haynesville Shale joint venture for more than $3 billion.
Shell and EnCana Corp., Canada's largest gas producer, are developing a shale-gas project in Haynesville. The Hague-based Shell holds 50 percent of the venture, which covers 3,000 acres, Chief Financial Officer Peter Voser said July 31.