Page 8 - NorthAmOil Week 28 2021

NorthAmOil PIPELINES & TRANSPORT NorthAmOil

Plains, Oryx partner in Permian

PERMIAN BASIN PLAINS All American Pipeline and Oryx pipeline system multi-segment capacity.
Midstream announced this week that they had Plains will own 65% of the joint venture and
agreed to merge their operations in the prolific will be its operator, while Oryx will hold the
Permian Basin into a new joint venture. The remaining 35% interest. The joint venture will
partnership, which will be known as Plains Oryx be consolidated into Plains’ financial statements
Permian Basin, will include all of Oryx’s Permian and the companies said they expect to achieve
assets and the “vast majority” of Plains’ assets in around $50mn in operational, cost and capital
the basin. The exception will be Plains’ long-haul synergies within 12 months. In the longer term,
pipeline systems and certain of its intra-basin they believe there is potential to increase to this
terminal assets. to $100mn or more via additional integration
Plains’ contribution to the joint venture and optimisation. They also see the transaction
will include roughly 3,900 miles (6,276 km) of as resulting in multiple opportunities to reduce
pipeline and related operational storage capac- greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the envi-
ity, as well as long-term acreage dedication and ronmental footprint of their systems in the
marketing agreements covering around 2.8mn Permian.
(11,331 square km) acres, and supply and facil- The deal will be a cashless one, and the joint
ities dedications. The Oryx contribution to the venture entity will be a debt-free one, the com-
partnership will include around 1,600 miles panies said.
(2,575 km) of pipeline and related operational “This joint venture is a natural combination
storage capacity, in addition to long-term acre- and logical next step to optimising our highly
age dedication and marketing agreements cover- complementary systems,” stated Plains’ chair-
ing roughly 1.3mn acres (5,261 square km). man and CEO, Willie Chiang.
The combined entity will thus have around Oryx’s CEO, Brett Wiggs, described the trans-
5,500 miles (8,851 km) of pipelines, as well as action as a “natural evolution” of the growth
roughly 4.1mn dedicated system acres (16,592 story for his firm, which is a portfolio company
square km) and 6.8mn barrels per day (bpd) of of Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners.™

INVESTMENT

WildFire to acquire Hawkwood

in Eagle Ford deal

TEXAS PRIVATE equity-backed WildFire Energy WildFire describes itself as an independent
announced this week that it had struck a deal to energy platform company formed to acquire
acquire Hawkwood Energy for roughly $650mn. and optimise production-weighted oil and gas
The deal is one of two announced over the past assets. It was formed in 2019 with funding from
week that is focused on the Eagle Ford shale play Warburg Pincus, Kayne Anderson and its own
in Texas. management. Its management has previous
Hawkwood has current liquids-weighted experience in the Eagle Ford, having managed
production of around 15,000 barrels of oil WildHorse Resource Development until its sale
equivalent per day (boepd) on a gross basis, to Chesapeake Energy in 2019 for nearly $4bn.
from around 360 wells on 160,000 net acres (647 Hawkwood was founded in 2012 with a line-
square km) in the Eagle Ford. Following the clos- of-equity commitment from lead investors War-
ing of the deal, the combined entity will retain burg Pincus and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.
the WildFire Energy name, and the WildFire WildFire noted that Hawkwood was ranked by
team will operate the assets. Hart Energy’s Oil & Gas Investor as a top 100 pri-
Once the transaction closes in the third quar- vate exploration and production firm in 2019, as
ter of 2021, Hawkwood’s existing shareholders well as the number three private operator in the
will retain a roughly 50% equity interest in Wild- Eagle Ford play in terms of production at the time.
Fire, alongside around 50% held by WildFire’s “We look forward to leveraging our prior
management team and private equity sponsor experience as neighbours to Hawkwood to con-
Kayne Anderson. tinue the team’s track record of efficient, profita-
WildFire also said that a “significant equity ble operations,” stated WildFire’s CEO, Anthony
investment” from Kayne Anderson and Wild- Bahr. He cited the improving environment for
Fire’s management team would “substantially oil and gas, saying that this presented “exciting
de-lever the company”. opportunities” for WildFire.™

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 28 15•July•2021