BlackBrush Oil and Gas has placed some of its assets in South Texas for sale, seizing on a surge in energy prices, people familiar with the matter said.

The San Antonio, Texas-based company, in which Bain Capital Specialty Finance is a major owner, has hired an investment bank to run an auction for more than 30,000 net acres (12,140 hectares) in the Eagle Ford Shale, which produce around 11,800 boe/d.

The baseline valuation of the asset's production would be around $430 million, although BlackBrush may seek a sale price in the “high hundreds of millions of dollars” to account for substantial undeveloped acreage in the area, the sources said on June 29.

The sources cautioned the effort could end without a deal and asked not to be identified because the matter is confidential.

BlackBrush did not respond to a comment request. Bain declined to comment.

BlackBrush was hit in 2020 by a collapse in energy prices as demand was destroyed by the COVID-19 pandemic, agreeing an out-of-court debt restructuring with its creditors in September of that year. Energy prices have rallied since then, hitting multi-year highs in recent weeks, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine disrupts oil and gas supplies.

Were it to sell the marketed south Texas assets, BlackBrush would retain further presence in the shale basin. Currently, the company has 360,000 gross acres in the Eagle Ford, according to its website.

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