Noble Energy to buy Rosetta Resources in $3.9bn transaction

Noble Energy has agreed to acquire Rosetta Resources in a $3.9bn deal including debt which will allow allow it to enter into the Eagle Ford and Permian resources.

Under the deal Noble Energy pay Rosetta $2.1bn and assume its net debt of $1.8bn.

Rosetta acquires and develops onshore unconventional resource plays in the US. The company’s asset base includes about 50,000 acres in the Eagle Ford Shale and 56,000 acres in the Permian basin.

Noble Energy has found more than 1,800 horizontal drilling locations for development, providing net unrisked resource potential of around one billion barrels of oil equivalent.

The assets owned by Rosetta produced 66,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in the first quarter of 2015, and proved reserves were 282 million barrels of oil equivalent by the end of 2014.

Noble Energy expects a compounded annual production growth rate of about 15% from Rosetta’s assets in the next several years.

Rosetta chairman, CEO and president Jim Craddock said: "The combination with Noble Energy brings together two complementary companies with a deep and diverse portfolio of assets in key unconventional resource basins."

Noble Energy chairman, CEO, and president Dave Stover said: "The Eagle Ford and the Permian are premier unconventional resource plays, two of the most economic in the U.S., which will expand our resource base and development inventory and further diversify our portfolio."

Noble Energy has core operations onshore in the US, mostly in the DJ Basin and Marcellus Shale, in the Gulf of Mexico, offshore Eastern Mediterranean, and West Africa.