Matador Resources Co. is headed north in the Delaware Basin and, when asked why, the response is apparently some variant of “Shh.”

During the company’s March analyst day, chairman, CEO and landman Joseph Wm. Foran talked up the company’s latest acquisitions in Lea County, N.M., in an area he calls Antelope Ridge.

The leasehold includes the new Lea project sometimes called the Red Hills area. Matador also added acreage in Rustler Breaks in southern Eddy County, N.M.

Since January, the company has picked up 8,200 net acres at a suspiciously low average price of $9,000 per acre. The company transacted about $110 million through late February.

Acreage in the Delaware typically goes for double or triple that amount. Marathon Oil Corp. said its two most recent deals in Lea and Eddy counties averaged $23,400 per acre. In November, Concho Resources Inc. bought into the Red Hills area for $20,000 per acre.

Foran says it pays low prices because that’s what landmen are supposed to do—explaining that sometimes that means driving a recreational vehicle around the Permian. It’s not a Matt Foley (Chris Farley) “van down by the river” motivational speech from Saturday Night Live, and that’s probably for the best.

Matador’s deals work because they’re small—ranging from 500 to 1,000 acres. While it’s more challenging work, and some deals come with a little “hair,” the key is to stay active.

The company estimates the Antelope Ridge area’s inventory of gross locations is 486, nearly 70% operated.

Despite the acquisitions in the south, the north continues to be a compelling story—one that may soon alter the center of gravity in the basin. Companies will continue to chase deals, Foran said.

“I think over this year, that’s one of the biggest changes you’ll see in our business, not just Matador’s but the whole industry,” he said. “It’s going to keep moving north. People are going to follow the Wolfcamp and the other zones in the Delaware farther north. You’re starting to see that already in our Airstrip wells.”

So are deals left in the crowded Delaware? After 33 years as a landman, Foran said he knows there are. “It depends on how much you’re willing to pay and how hard you’re willing to work,” he said. Matador, Foran said, has historically been ahead of the pack in the Delaware.

It entered at a time when much of the industry’s focus was almost uniformly on the Midland Basin. The company’s total Permian leasehold includes more than 101,000 net leasehold and mineral acres, nearly all of it in the Delaware.

Costs to obtain that acreage, Matador said, averaged $6,000 per acre.

Before going public, the company had limited money when it entered the Eagle Ford to find acreage.

Going to courthouse auctions to be outbid by competitors seemed pointless, Foran said. Instead, Van H. Singleton II, executive vice president of land, chatted up ranchers in cafes, talked up bankers about who had cashed bonus checks and approached people directly about their leases.

This way, Matador amassed a 30,000-acre position in the Eagle Ford. Eventually, in the Permian Basin, the company was faced with similar pressures.

“When things got hot … [Singleton] bought an RV. And he drove out to the courthouse and parked it,” Foran said. “He did everything but stand on a corner with a sign and say, ‘We’ll buy leases.’”

Matador also retains strong local relationships; it’s executed more than a dozen deals with a single family.

Asked by an analyst whether Matador plans to part with its Eagle Ford and Haynesville assets, Foran said the company has seen strong interest in both.

However, people “sometimes are looking for a bargain,” he said, noting that a strong balance sheet has kept the company from being forced to sell at basement prices. To begin 2017, the company had $213 million in cash—before proceeds from its midstream joint venture. The company has about $1 billion in liquidity.

Foran said the Eagle Ford and Haynesville are available at the right price. Hanging onto both plays has turned out to be fortuitous.

The Eagle Ford, with EOG Resource Inc.’s improving completion techniques giving the shale play a boost, has increased the assets’ value.

“The Haynesville—we’ve been pushed on that for a long time,” he said. But with gas at more than $3 per thousand cubic feet and new completion techniques, “it’s one of the hot plays.”

The danger of doing a deal at the bottom of the market is that “you might hate yourself” later, Foran said. “There are companies that hate themselves for selling out of the Delaware and now, to get back in, they have to pay far more.”

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