Enduring Resources II LLC is far from finished in the Permian Basin. “We sold about a third of our acreage and about 85% of our production,” Barth Whitham, president and CEO, told Oil and Gas Investor Aug. 1 upon closing the $2.5 billion sale of 63,000 net acres to American Energy Partners LP.

“We have some additional Permian acreage.”

The privately held exploration and production (E&P) company had three blocks of leasehold in the Midland and Delaware basins. What it sold is in the southern Midland Basin in Reagan, Irion and Crockett counties, producing some 16,000 net barrels of oil equivalent per day. Commerciality of the Wolfcamp Formation in the area has largely been delineated, such as by Pioneer Natural Resources Co. (NYSE: PXD), which is already onto pad drilling there.

Another Enduring block is also in the Midland Basin and the third is in the Delaware Basin. What will get the most attention now? Whitham said, “It’s more Delaware than Midland.”

The company also has Rockies-gas assets, including in the Uinta Basin. “Right now, because oil is the more valuable commodity than gas, it makes us work more in our Texas positions than in our Rockies positions. They’re gassier and in a more complicated regulatory environment.

“We’ve got quite a bit still to do in the Permian.”

Although American Energy Partners’ press releases have said it was buying acreage from Enduring, a perception developed that Enduring was exiting the Permian Basin. “But we haven’t gotten out of the Permian,” Whitham says. “Some of our vendors and our people were a little worried. It was a bit confusing--some of these news articles about AEP and Enduring. Some people had the impression AEP was buying Enduring out.”

Enduring sold its roughly-100,000 net acre Eagle Ford position to Statoil ASA (NYSE: STO) and Talisman Energy Inc. (NYSE: TLM, TO: TLM.TO) for $1.4 billion in 2010. In that, Enduring had a South Texas exit. “We sold a pretty substantial piece of our production, but we typically have a portfolio of projects we’re working on so, if we sell one, we pivot into some of the other assets we have.”

Enduring had four rigs drilling its position in the southern Midland Basin. AEP, formed in 2013 by Chesapeake Energy Corp. (NYSE: CHK) co-founder Aubrey McClendon, reported in the deal announcement that it expects to increase that to up to eight rigs by year-end 2015. Also, it estimates potential for some 2,500 gross well locations, 1,750 net, on the leasehold.

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