UPL Buys Shell's Pinedale Properties

HOUSTON—Coinciding with the purchase and sale agreement between Royal Dutch Shell affiliates and a partnership of Dallas-based Vine Oil & Gas LP and Blackstone Energy Partners for 107,000 acres of natural gas fields, Houston-based Ultra Petroleum Corp. has struck a similar deal.  The company is buying Shell’s interest in the Pinedale natural gas field in Wyoming for $925 million in cash and a swap of 155,000 net acres in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale.

Shell’s Pinedale field properties, which it’s trading through its SWEPI LP affiliate, currently produce approximately 189 million cubic feet equivalent per day of natural gas and condensate. Adding the Shell assets to its existing investments in the region, ULP will operate approximately 1,577 gross wells, or about 68% of the Pinedale field, following the deal’s closing.