APEX Natural Gas expands in northwest Louisiana with multiple drilling permits

• BY LIZ SWAINE | Staff writer  12/ 9/2025  shreveportbossieradvocate.com

It appears that APEX Natural Gas is once again expanding their reach. Bloomberg News is reporting two new deals: one for $430 million to buy East Texas Comstock acreage from Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, the other for Louisiana acreage from Azul Resources, LLC, a smaller Haynesville Shale player. The deals, according to Bloomberg, could close this month and in January.

APEX is owned by the hedge fund Citadel, which purchased the company — then called Paloma Natural Gas — for roughly $1 billion in March of this year.

On their homepage, APEX states, "With a deep inventory of undeveloped locations, APEX is committed to being a premier provider of clean-burning natural gas to the North American market."

Shreveport-based mineral consultant Skip Peel says even with the sizeable investment, APEX is still a smaller player in the Haynesville Shale, and significant interest is now being shown in the relatively new Western Haynesville between Waco and College Station that some energy businesses are referring to as "the new frontier."

Though at greater depths, natural gas in the western Haynesville has so far proved to be high pressure and very productive.

Hart Energy says Comstock Resources, Mitsui and Aethon are taking the lead in exploration there.

Locally, though, APEX is active and has applied for or received drilling permits in Caddo, Bossier, DeSoto, Red River, and other northwest Louisiana parishes. Peel says Citadel spent a lot of money on purchasing Paloma/APEX and is now spending more on new acreage. He believes the drilling activity, even with the price of natural gas relatively low, is intended to create cash flow.

Peel says wells cost anywhere from $10 million upward to $15 million. "They're so complex compared to what came before and those rigs probably run anywhere from $20,000 to $25,000 a day." 

A number of APEX' permits are for multiple wells in one section. One site has seven wells, one six wells, two of them have four, and others have multiples.

"You pay by the day for the rig. That's one of the reasons why these companies push so hard to drill faster and have fewer days that they have to pay for that rig. When they do these groups, it's nice because they just walk it (the rig) over 50 feet and start drilling the next one."

After the drilling is done, Peel said, it's time for the frac crew to get to work. Once done, the valve is opened, and natural gas begins flowing.

The most recent Department of Natural Resources Office of Conservation listings show that APEX has 253 wells in Caddo, Bossier, Sabine, Webster, DeSoto, Red River and Bienville. Eight of the permits came this month alone.

Peel says the larger players — Expand, Comstock, Aethon — are drilling, but perhaps only one well to APEX's multiples. "Their level of activity is nothing compared to APEX right now."