A private equity (PE)-backed oil and gas partnership formed last year has secured about $600 million in additional capital commitments to acquire and develop drilling opportunities in the Permian Basin.
EnCap Investments LP, Double Eagle Energy Holdings IV and Tumbleweed Royalty IV LLC on Sunday announced a “successful equity commitment upsize” to $2.3 billion, and the establishment of a reserve-based lending (RBL) facility.
Double Eagle IV and Tumbleweed IV were formed in mid-2022 with funding of more than $1.7 billion. Double Eagle IV invests in Permian oil and gas properties, while Tumbleweed IV targets royalty and mineral investments in the basin.
“The expansion of capital will provide for acceleration of Double Eagle’s core strategy of acquiring and developing top-tier, accretive drilling opportunities in the Permian Basin,” the management team said.
The RBL facility, meanwhile, “enhances Double Eagle’s ability to pursue high-quality assets and increase development pace.”
Double Eagle’s Cody Campbell and John Sellers, co-CEOs, said the company recently added two drilling rigs to its program. Double Eagle “will continue running four rigs for the foreseeable future with a potential fifth rig joining later this year. We are now in a position to execute on a robust development plan while maintaining the ability to expand our footprint throughout the Permian,” they added.
Sellers and Campbell in 2018 created DoublePoint Energy LLC, which was subsequently sold for $6.4 billion to Pioneer Natural Resources Co. in 2021.
“We appreciate the support of our strategic partners and look forward to continuing these legacy relationships from previous Double Eagle iterations,” Campbell and Sellers said. “We are now in a position to execute on a robust development plan while maintaining the ability to expand our footprint throughout the Permian.”
EnCap’s Jason DeLorenzo, managing partner, added that, “Since our partnership began less than a year ago, the team at Double Eagle has been highly successful in re-establishing themselves as a premier acquirer and developer of assets. We are excited to continue building this business together with them.”
Mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. oil and gas space during 2022 were dominated by large, publicly traded operators snapping up assets from PE firms in order to shore up drilling inventory, according to a recent report by Enverus.
The trend is likely to continue this year, researchers said, boding well for PE-backed developers such as Double Eagle.
