Wall Street Journal
August 18, 2011
Noble Energy to Pay $3.4 Billion to Develop Marcellus Shale With Consol
Kris Maher
Consol Energy Inc., is selling half of its Marcellus shale holdings to oil-and-gas producer Noble Energy Inc. for $3.4 billion. The transactions enables Consol to accelerate development of its Marcellus Shale holdings. Consol and Noble will jointly develop 663,350 acres in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, the companies said Thursday. Even with Noble taking 50% of future production, Consol said it still expects to meet its own 2015 production target of 350 billion cubic feet of gas as a result of increased drilling activities. The transaction with Noble Energy more than doubles the value of Consol’s Marcellus holdings to $9,650 an acre. Consol paid roughly $3.4 billion 15 months ago for Dominion Resources Inc.’s Appalachian exploration-and-production business. That included $1.9 billion for 491,000 undeveloped Marcellus acres, or about $3,800 per acre.