yet another deal in shale

French oil major Total on Monday struck a deal to enter the U.S. shale-gas market for the first time with a $2.25 billion accord with Chesapeake Energy.

Terms call for Total to buy a 25% interest in Chesapeake Energy's upstream Barnett shale assets by paying $800 million in cash at closing and an additional $1.45 billion to fund 60% of Chesapeake's share of drilling and completion expenditures.

Additionally, Total and Chesapeake have agreed to jointly study certain other North American shale gas opportunities together. We plan to continue to take advantage of our large asset base by pursuing other joint ventures, including potentially our large acreage positions in the Eagle Ford Shale and in several Mid-Continent unconventional plays that we believe would be attractive to potential partners. We have agreed to discuss with Total an Eagle Ford joint venture as well as joint ventures covering several Canadian natural gas shale plays in which Total has shown an interest.