Dallas Cowboys billionaire owner Jerry Jones is exploring a series of takeovers to expand his Comstock Resources Inc. in the Haynesville Shale, as drillers return to the previously shunned shale gas play.
The Dallas Morning News reports executives at Comstock have been open about their willingness to do deals after Jones bought an 84% stake earlier this year. The company recently expressed interest in buying private equity-backed Covey Park Energy LLC, according to two people familiar with the situation. Conversations didn’t reach a material stage, adds one of the people.
Spokesmen for Comstock and Covey Park declines to comment on the potential deal, and Jones wasn’t available for comment.
“It’s really a buyers’ market now,” Chief Financial Officer Roland Burns said on an Aug. 8 conference call. Comstock is looking “for smaller companies that really don’t have the resources to develop that acreage to join up with Comstock and put that under our umbrella.”
Comstock’s operations are focused in the Eagle Ford shale play, as well as in the Haynesville/Bossier region. The Eagle Ford shale play crosses southern Texas from the Mexican border into East Texas, and it’s roughly 50 miles wide and 400 miles long. The Haynesville/Bossier Shale is in East Texas and extends across the border into western Louisiana.
