Joint Venture Between Reliance Industries and Atlas Energy Worth $3.5 Billion Over 10 Years

Indian energy giant Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has entered a joint venture with Atlas Energy (based in Pittsburgh). MDN previously reported on the rumors of an impending deal between the two companies. Reliance, India’s largest energy company and one of the largest energy companies in the world, will get 40 percent (120,000 acres) of Atlas Energy’s Marcellus Shale leases as part of the deal. The terms are a bit complex, but in the end, this is the largest deal to date between energy companies in the Marcellus Shale with a value of $3.5 billion over 10 years:

Reliance will bear an acquisition cost of $339 million and pay an additional $1.36 billion as capital costs for the development programme over seven and a half years.

However, the investment would be scaled up to $3.5 billion over the next 10 years, RIL CFO Alok Agarwal said today in Mumbai.

The acreage will support the drilling of over 3,000 wells with a net resource potential of approximately 13.3 tcfe (5.3 tcfe net to RIL).*

From the Atlas press statement:

Atlas Energy, Inc. (“Atlas” or “the Company”) announces today its entry into a joint venture transaction with a wholly owned affiliate of Reliance Industries Limited (“Reliance”), the largest private sector company in India and a global energy leader, pursuant to which Atlas will transfer an interest in its Marcellus Shale position equal to 120,000 net acres in a transaction valued at $1.7 billion. Reliance will pay approximately $340 million in cash upon closing and an additional $1.36 billion in the form of a drilling carry. Atlas will serve as the development operator for the joint venture. Reliance will have the option to operate in certain project areas in the coming years outside of Atlas’ core operating areas of Fayette, Greene, Washington, and Westmoreland Counties in southwestern Pennsylvania.

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