Hi spylord I think they are doing exactly the right thing by...

Hi spylord

I think they are doing exactly the right thing by being discreet with their leasing program. They are adding acreage in smaller increments, so I presume the landman is dealing directly with the farmers, not another E&P company.

Unless other E&P's have a private investigator tailing the landman, or intercepting his phone calls, they'd have no idea what is being negotiated. MAD believes it is getting a good deal and doesn't want other operators creating a bidding war. It is important to get contiguous acreage to enable pooling which is important for the HBP clauses of the lease.

On another note, AWE on Jan 16, sold its 10% WI (7.5%NRI) in the sugarloaf Eagle Ford 24,000 gross acres (so 2400 nett) for US$199m or $83,000 per acre. Admittedly this is supposedly prime acreage with 19.4mm 1P gross reserves 1.94 net. I'm not suggesting MAD's recent leasing is of the same quality, we don't even know which basin it's in, however their selection criteria is very stringent. Yeager described Blue Ridge as "this little thing" yet he calls the new acreage significant.