Everyone from ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) and BP
on down to the scrappiest start-up seems to be intent on sniffing out
new shale plays these days. To keep on top of these developments, I
plan to run an update every month or so.
Marathon races to take Pole position
Our
Thanksgiving edition begins in Poland, where industry expectations are
clearly running high. We already knew that ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) were lining up large acreage positions in the Eastern European country. Last week, we learned that Marathon Oil (NYSE: MRO) has hopped on board as well.
I'll save you the nearly 50-megabyte download of Marathon's
analyst-day slide deck and share the few details on offer. The firm's
entry into Poland consists of a single concession, the Kwidzyn license,
covering just less than 300,000 acres in the Baltic Basin. This acreage
lies right near some of the concessions that Conoco agreed to farm into
this summer.
Marathon's push into frontier shale gas follows its entry into
various North American plays, namely the Haynesville, the Woodford, and
the Marcellus. The company is also a heavy hitter in the oily Bakken
shale play. The firm certainly brings a good deal of technological
savvy to the table. What we don't know is whether Marathon's sitting on
the right rocks. Time and the drill bit will tell all.
Wine, cheese, and ... oil?
Speaking of oil-bearing shale plays -- not to be confused with Royal Dutch Shell's kerogen-cooking schemes in the Green River Basin -- Toreador Resources (Nasdaq: TRGL)
is a small-cap E&P that's shed assets in several countries to focus
on conventional and unconventional oil targets in France's Paris Basin.
The company even moved it headquarters from Dallas to Paris, in a rare
display of commitment to the area.
Toreador's whittled down its debt and corporate overhead to a
somewhat more manageable level, but the firm still needs to figure out
how best to tackle its oil shale opportunity. The company hired a
banker this month to help it "evaluate strategic alternatives." Such
language is often code for "sell the company," but in this case, some
sort of financing might be just as likely. The $200 million shelf
registration filed around the same time as this announcement would
suggest that some serious fundraising may lie ahead.
A Foolish alliance alights in Africa
From France we take a flight down to South Africa, where Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK) and StatoilHydro have staked some ground in partnership with Sasol (NYSE: SSL).
Now there's a Foolish trio for you. All three companies are
recommendations of various Fool newsletters, and all are clearly pumped
about global shale gas potential.
The Chesapeake/Statoil international joint venture, formed at the time of the firms' pair-up in the Marcellus late last year,
is searching the entire planet for analogues to North America's best
unconventional resource plays. The companies have professed interest in
places as far-ranging as China, India, and Australia, but this
application for exploration rights in South Africa's Karoo Basin is the
first public acknowledgment of an actual acreage grab by the pair that
I've come across.
The selection of South Africa as a shale hunting ground was a bit of
a curveball. I'll be very curious to see where this duo drops in next.
© 2009 UCLICK L.L.C.
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