Range Sells Haynesville Assets to Japan for “Pennies on the Dollar”
Range Resources has cut a deal to sell its Haynesville Shale assets (220,000 acres plus the wells they’ve drilled since buying those assets) to Castleton Resources, a privately owned company majority-owned by Tokyo Gas, for $245 million (plus an extra $90 million, maybe, contingent on the price of gas). Range bought those assets in 2016 for $4.4 billion (see Range Resources Buys Louisiana Driller in Deal Worth $4.4B). Yeah, Range just took a bath, selling their Haynesville assets for pennies on the dollar…
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Yesterday MDN brought you the news that CNX Resources is buying out the balance of what they don’t own in their pipeline subsidiary CNX Midstream (see 
CNX Midstream began life as a joint venture between CONSOL Energy (the forerunner to CNX Resources) and Noble Energy, and was called CONE Midstream (“CO” from CONSOL and “NE” from Noble Energy). Noble decided to completely exit the Marcellus/Utica and ended up selling their half of CONE to CNX for $305 million in early 2018 (see 
Last year Chevron tried to buy Permian driller Anadarko Petroleum for $50 billion. Occidental Petroleum swooped in at the last minute and lured Anadarko away in a $57 billion deal. Chevron left the marriage altar with a cool $1 billion in breakup fees (see 
In June 2018, EV Energy Partners (EVEP), the drilling subsidiary of EnerVest, emerged from bankruptcy court a mere two months after entering with $355 million of debt erased and sporting a new name: Harvest Oil & Gas Corp. (see 
This is one of those “follow the bouncing ball” stories with lots of names. Bear with us because there is a connection to the Marcellus/Utica region. BP Energy Partners, a private equity firm based in Dallas, TX, invests in (and ultimately controls) a number of companies. Two of their portfolio companies are Thigpen Solutions and Blue Roads Solutions, both virtual pipeline companies delivering CNG and LNG to different types of customers. BP is merging the two into one company and renaming it Sapphire Gas Solutions.
Equitrans, formerly EQT Midstream, separated from EQT in November 2018. Equitrans, via its EQM Midstream affiliate, gathers, processes, and flows most of EQT’s natural gas production, getting it to market. In February Equitrans announced it will absorb EQM, a limited partnership, into the fold (see 
LNG Limited (LNGL), based in Australia, has been working on a couple of North American LNG export projects over the past half-decade or more. One of them, Magnolia LNG, is located in Louisiana will potentially export M-U molecules. Magnolia has all of its permits and is ready to build–if someone has the money to build it. It won’t be LNGL. The company recently imploded and ended up in the hands of a bankruptcy administrator who is now selling off the assets.
LNG Limited (LNGL), based in Australia, has been working on a couple of North American LNG export projects over the past half-decade or more. One of them, called Bear Head, would be built in Nova Scotia, Canada and (potentially) export Marcellus/Utica molecules. The other, Magnolia LNG, would be located in Louisiana and yes, potentially export M-U molecules as well. LNGL was in the process of selling itself and its LNG projects to Singapore investor LNG9 PTE for $75 million. LNG9 has just canceled the deal, leaving the future both the Bear Head and Magnolia projects in question.
Reuters is reporting a disturbing allegation that Big Banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Citigroup, are each in the process of setting up shell companies that can own shale oil and gas assets. Why? Because of a coming wave of bankruptcies. The banks, with big loans to a number of oil companies, plan to take ownership of the companies or their assets (foreclosure) as repayment of the loans owed. In other words, Big Banks are planning to get into the oil and gas business as a form of self-defense, so they don’t take a bath on the value of the assets they’ve helped underwrite.
The gloves are off. Today we’re calling out the American Petroleum Institute and the Big Oil supermajors that control the API for their selfishness and shortsightedness. Apparently the supermajors have long wanted American shale and the plethora of smaller independents to just go away–so they (Big Oil) could once again control the world market for oil. The result of that philosophy, whether intentional or not, will be to allow foreign countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia to buy up OUR American shale companies, for themselves (see U.S. in Danger of Losing Our Shale Oil Industry to Other Countries). The API hides under the covering of “don’t interfere in free markets” in advising President Trump to not do anything to help American shale. That’s bunkum.
America is in danger of losing ownership of our shale oil companies to bad actors including Saudi Arabia, Russia and other foreign countries. Those countries are actively, aggressively, purposely waging a price war against us, trying to drive American shale companies into bankruptcy. Why? So they can turn around and buy up our companies and once again control the world market for oil. It is a *hostile* action. President Trump, please don’t let it happen!