HOUSTON – Southwestern Energy Co. said Tuesday it is planning to snap up Statoil’s 20-percent stake in oil and gas assets in West Virginia and southwest Pennsylvania for $394 million, just a day after closing its biggest-ever deal with Chesapeake Energy in the region.
The transaction, which encompasses 30,000 net acres, boosts Southwestern Energy’s working interests in that area of the Marcellus and Utica shale plays by 5.8 percent to 73 percent. The wells on the land produce about 29 million cubic feet of gas a day, as of October.
The deal is expected to close early next year. It’s the Houston natural gas and oil producer’s third proposed acquisition since October.
It had bought $5.4 billion worth of gas land from Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake, though the final closing price fell to $4.98 billion by Monday. And earlier this month, Southwestern agreed to acquire more nearby acreage in Pennsylvania for $300 million.
All told, the Chesapeake and the Statoil acreage amount to 443,000 net acres in the gas-rich region, cementing its bet on natural gas at a time when oil prices have fallen dramatically.