CDT Roundup: 15 Deals, 11 Firms, 118 Lawyers, $3.9B

Mergers and acquisitions in the upstream part of the U.S. oil and gas business may have slid 44% in the third quarter from the second quarter’s record-setting deal value, energy data analytics company Enverus reported last week. But the $18.5 billion transacted still topped the five-year quarterly average for M&A value of about $16 billion (excluding Occidental/Anadarko).

Andrew Dittmar, a director at Enverus, said he has seen a “red-hot” market for upstream M&A since the industry recovered its footing from the initial shock of COVID-19, inevitably leading to the hungriest buyers and sellers finding their deals and activity reverting back toward the average. “We seem to be hitting that inflection point,” he said.