Denver-based Whiting Petroleum Corp. agreed Wednesday to acquire oil and gas properties in Texas and Oklahoma for $802 million.
The transaction will nearly double Whiting’s oil and gas reserves.
The acquisition represents nearly all of the energy assets of the seller, Midland, Texas-based Celero Energy LP.
Properties in the deal include 25,600 acres of the Postle field in the Oklahoma Panhandle and 58,000 acres of the North Ward Estes field in west Texas.
A Colorado company buying Southern U.S. energy production bucks the recent pattern of out-of-state firms purchasing Denver-based producers with Rocky Mountain oil and gas assets.
“These (Texas and Oklahoma) properties, in the sense of having good, long lives, are similar to properties in the Rockies,” said Whiting chief executive Jim Volker.
Upon expected completion of the deal later this year, Whiting’s oil and gas reserves will increase from the equivalent of 865 billion cubic feet of natural gas to 1.6 trillion cubic feet, an increase of 85 percent.
Whiting will pay $785 million in cash to Celero and give it 441,500 shares of Whiting common stock with a current value of about $17 million.
Whiting was spun off by Madison, Wis.-based utility Alliant Energy Corp. in 2003 and raised about $240 million in an initial public offering.
Staff writer Steve Raabe can be reached at 303-820-1948 or sraabe@denverpost.com.
