© 2015 The Texas Lawbook.
By Natalie Posgate
(Aug. 26) – GeoSouthern Haynesville, LP and GSO Capital Partners announced Tuesday their plans to purchase $850 million worth of Haynesville Shale assets from Canada-based Encana Corporation. GeoSouthern and GSO are executing the deal via their joint venture, GEP Haynesville, LLC.
The assets, which are located primarily in Lousiana’s DeSoto and Red River Parishes, contain approximately 112,000 net acres and 300 operated wells in the Haynesville Shale.
The transaction is all cash and includes an assumption of liability by GeoSouthern, plus GeoSouthern’s agreement to allow Encana to transport and market the production.
Texas lawyers from Kirkland & Ellis, Thompson & Knight and Akin Gump were all involved in the deal.
Kirkland represented GeoSouthern and GEP Haynesville. Partner Andy Calder led the Houston-based corporate deal team and received assistance from partner John Pitts and associates Bradford Rossi, David Thompson and Kathleen Turner. Attorneys from the firm’s Chicago, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. offices advised on finance, environmental, labor and employment, antitrust and intellectual property matters.
Dallas partner Debra Villarreal of Thompson & Knight represented GeoSouthern in the deal before GSO got involved. After that happened, Kirkland took over the transaction for GeoSouthern. But Austin partner Gaye White and Dallas-Fort Worth associate Cole Bredthauer still represent GeoSouthern in the negotiations of the marketing agreements with Encana.
GSO turned to Thomas J. McCaffrey of Akin Gump in Houston to lead its end of the deal. McCaffrey received assistance from Dallas corporate partner Matt Zmigrosky; Houston oil and gas partner Shubi Arora, counsel Andrew B. Lehman and associates Cy Jones and Stephen Harrington; Houston tax partners Thomas Weir, Alison Chen and Patrick B. Fenn; and attorneys from the firm’s New York and Washington, D.C. offices.
Houston attorney Bob Baker of R W Baker Consulting also advised GSO in the transaction. Baker has served in numerous in-house positions, including as the former general counsel at Rosetta Resources, El Paso Pipeline Partners and El Paso Corporation. He began his career as an in-house attorney at Texaco.
In connection with the deal, GSO will receive preferred equity interests and a 10 percent common equity stake in the joint venture entity.
Encana kept its deal team outside of Texas, turning to Denver-based in-house attorney Scott Regan and Cynthia Nicholson of Gordon Arata in New Orleans.
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