Reliance Industries Pay $192 Million for Leases on 42K Acres in PA Marcellus Shale Reliance Industry Atlas Energy Joint Venture

The recently announced joint venture between Atlas Energy and Indian energy giant Reliance Industries (a deal worth $3.5 billion over 10 years) is already bearing fruit.

Together they’ve just forked over $192 million to secure leases for more land in Pennsylvania.

Independent oil and gas company Atlas Energy will buy 42,344 acres in the gas-rich Marcellus shale along with Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), weeks after the two announced a joint venture.

The companies will buy the acreage in Fayette, Washington, Indiana, Westmoreland, Armstrong and Clarion Counties of Pennsylvania at an average price of $4,532 per acre.

Following Wednesday’s deal, the Atlas-RIL joint venture will control about 343,000 Marcellus Shale acres, of which about 206,000 acres are net to Atlas.

According to the Atlas Energy website:

Substantially all of the acreage to be acquired is held by production and is either contiguous with the joint venture’s existing acreage or is in concentrated blocks of acreage. [Atlas] believes that it will be able to drill over 450 horizontal wells on this acquired acreage assuming 1,000 foot spacing between lateral wells.