Anadarko teams up with Mitsui in Marcellus Shale

The Marcellus Shale

Anadarko Petroleum Corporation has announced it will be entering into a joint venture with Mitsui E&P USA LLC, an affiliate of Mitsui & Co. Ltd in the Marcellus Shale.

Mitsui will participate with Anadarko as a 32.5-percent partner in Anadarko's Marcellus Shale assets primarily located in north-central Pennsylvania, at a cost of approximately $1.4 billion.

Mitsui will earn approximately 100,000 net acres in exchange for funding 100 percent of Anadarko's share of development costs in 2010, and 90 percent of these costs thereafter, with an estimated completion of all obligations by 2013, as reported by Oil Voice.

Mitsui will also be given the option to purchase a 32.5 percent share of Anadarko's existing wells and additional acreage acquisitions by reimbursing a proportionate share of Anadarko's prior expenditures, currently estimated to be approximately $100 million.

Energy Company of the Year

2009 was a good year for Anadarko that saw them pick up Platts Energy Company of the Year with Chairman, President and CEO, James T. Hackett also being named CEO of the year.

Speaking of the acquisition Hackett said: "We are very pleased to have Mitsui as a partner in the Marcellus Shale.

"This transaction reflects the significant value of Anadarko's fairway position in the Marcellus Shale, which has a gross unrisked resource potential of more than 30 Tcf (trillion cubic feet) of natural gas and spans more than 715,000 gross acres.

"We continue to ramp up our activities in the Marcellus and anticipate drilling more than 4,500 wells over the coming years. We have successfully partnered with Mitsui in other parts of the world and look forward to working with them and our other partners in the Marcellus, as we continue to develop and deliver these domestically produced, clean-burning natural gas resources to American consumers."

The joint venture is effective of January 1 2010.

Relevant articles:

Exxon profits take a hit | Will political change aid carbon tax? | Offshore drilling high on agenda

Like this article? Get the RSS feed: