From Pittsburgh Business Times
PennEnergy Resources LLC is a privately held natural gas driller that normally prefers to take a low profile. But when its acquisition of the assets of bankrupt Rex Energy Corp. is completed at the end of September, that profile has become a lot larger.
PennEnergy received approval Thursday afternoon from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Pittsburgh to acquire Rex’s natural gas wells and acreage north of Pittsburgh and in Ohio for $600.5 million. The two companies’ assets are in close proximity to one another in Butler County. When Rex filed for bankruptcy in May, PennEnergy became focused on acquiring the assets.
Now that it will be done soon, PennEnergy CEO Rich Weber said things will move forward. PennEnergy has one horizontal rig drilling wells and, with the Rex assets, plans to add a second one in 2019 as it integrates the two companies. That’s likely to be on the former Rex acreage, where there has been no drilling since the bankruptcy filing.
“The combined company will have over 200,000 acres and almost 20 years’ worth of drilling (ahead),” Weber said.
PennEnergy doesn’t disclose revenue figures. The company has about 70 of its own employees, and expects to have between 100 and 110 employees with the addition of some of Rex’s employees. It will have 450 million cubic feet of natural gas production and 329 producing wells, mostly in the liquids-rich natural gas fields of Butler, Beaver and Armstrong counties. PennEnergy was founded in 2011 by Weber and Greg Muse, and is majority owned by EnCap Investments.
Weber said PennEnergy is unique in that it is one of the few natural gas companies that are headquartered in the Pittsburgh region, something he takes particular pride in. PennEnergy’s focus has been in the counties north of Pittsburgh, which Weber said has some of the best geology in the state. He wouldn’t rule out more acquisitions in the future.
“There are assets that may become available that we think are in the core of the Marcellus, and if that were to happen, we would have interest,” Weber said.
