Vine Resources Files $500 Million IPO As The Haynesville Comes Back In Favor
Being a basin that produces dry gas, the Haynesville had fallen out of favor among most E&P’s, who opted instead to pursue liquids-rich plays in Oklahoma and Texas, which were offering higher netbacks than dry gas, at least before the oil price collapse. As an early mover among the shale plays, most acreage in the Haynesville was held by production, so producers were not compelled to drill in order to keep it. Now it is coming back in favor.
Plano, Texas-based natural gas producer Vine Resources on Monday, April 10, filed initial IPO paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission with a $500 million placeholder, and it may be a sign of things to come in east Texas.
Haynesville Overview: The Haynesville Shale is a massive dry natural gas formation in Northwest Louisiana and Eastern Texas that lies at true vertical depths between 10000’-14000’.
Haynesville Counties: Counties/Parishes
Louisiana: Bienville, Bossier, Caddo, DeSoto, Natchitoches, Red River, Sabine, Webster
Texas: Gregg, Harrison, Nacogdoches, Panola, Rusk, Sabine, San Augustine, Shelby
The Blackstone Group (BX) portfolio company, which is focused on the Haynesville Shale, a natural gas play in eastern Texas and northwestern Louisiana, did not provide many details on the size of the planned offering in its initial S-1 filing, but revealed that Credit Suisse Group and Morgan Stanley are the lead underwriters. The company intends to list on the NYSE with the ticker symbol VRI.
Vine Resources is the first among a growing group of Haynesville-focused players expected to go public this year to file an S-1 with the SEC. The company bought much of its Haynesville acreage from Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A) in 2014 for $1.2 billion.
After A&D picked back up in the Haynesville in 2016, companies such as EXCO Resources Inc., are shifting to the gas play. EXCO said April 10 that it would sell $300 million worth of Eagle Ford assets to fund drilling in the East Texas and Louisiana shale play.
Another IPO sources anticipate in the coming months is Indigo Minerals, which received $300 million in new backing from Trilantic Capital Management in April 2016 along with another $75 million in commitments from existing investors Martin Cos., Yorktown Partners and Ridgemont Equity Partners.
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Compiled and Published by GIB KNIGHT
Gib Knight is a private oil and gas investor and consultant, providing clients advanced analytics and building innovative visual business intelligence solutions to visualize the results, across a broad spectrum of regulatory filings and production data in Oklahoma and Texas. He is the founder of OklahomaMinerals.com, an online resource designed for mineral owners in Oklahoma.
