The Permian Basin Attracting Private Equity – But is the Party Over?
HERE is a Financial Post article with an interesting overview of the Permian Basis, located in West Texas and Southeast New Mexico.
The Permian Basis benefits from a lower breakeven point, less than $45 a barrel, compared to most other oil plays, at least until the price of services, materials and acreage jump due to high demand and damage its economic viability. The advent of horizontal drilling and other fracking technologies rejuvenated the area with some estimating it is capable of producing another 60 billion barrels of oil.
The region was producing under 1.5 million barrels per day in 2013 and is now expected to reach 2.5 million bpd in 2017. Private equity investment in the region has also grown, with roughly $28 billion in PE deals announced in 2016 alone.
A problem with the Permian is the cost of acreage, which has reached as high as $60k per acre, a 50-fold increase over 4 years, according to Bloomberg, and 10 times higher than North Dakota. See the Bloomberg article HERE.