Rockcliff Energy LLC CEO Alan Smith’s plan was to go shale shopping with $700 million of capital—at least double most management teams’ private equity commitments.

Smith’s strategy was to have enough money to dip his toes into two basins as he searched for the right assets. He zeroed in on the Delaware Basin—just as it was starting to catch fire—and the ArkLaTex region, which was starting to see deal flow improve.

He founded Rockcliff Energy in January 2015, just after selling Houston-based QR Energy LP to Breitburn Energy Partners LP in a deal worth about $3 billion. Within nine months, Rockcliff flipped 45,121 net acres in the Terryville Complex to Memorial Resource Development Corp. for $283.8 million.

Smith was in familiar territory; then came Rockcliff’s deal drought. With his MLP days behind him, Smith stayed disciplined. The company worked its two-basin strategy.

“We try to skate where the puck’s going,” Smith told Investor. The Haynesville, which Rockcliff remapped, had clear appeal. The Delaware Basin was far less risky—but extremely expensive.

From October 2015 through August, Rockcliff’s efforts to find a new basin home stalled. The company steadfastly chased deals. At times, it raced along frenetically like Steve McQueen’s Mustang in “Bullit”—only to plow headlong into a Lawrence of Arabia sandstorm.

“You’ve got to identify what it is you’re looking for, and you’ve got to be ready to move whenever the appropriate time is to move. And I think that’s what we did,” Smith said.

In August, the company signed two deals to acquire roughly 270,000 net acres in the Haynesville, Mid-Bossier and Cotton Valley. Rockcliff publicly disclosed an agreement to buy 210,000 net acres from Samson Resources II LLC for $525 million.

Rockcliff’s most recent successes took two years to make a reality.

Retracing his steps in a telephone interview, Smith said his first and most important acquisition was perhaps the assembling of his team.

“In our DNA, we really have to understand the geology of what we’re looking to invest in. That starts with technical team and geology,” he said. “I cut my teeth in East Texas. We built successful businesses there before.”

Still, Smith vastly retooled his team, adding personnel who understood what makes the Delaware and Haynesville subsurface tick. The company is stocked with hands experienced in the Haynesville, including staff that ran big budget, 15-rig programs for Petrohawk Energy Corp.

Rockcliff’s interest in Samson Resources’ acreage was, by deal time, no secret. The company tried to buy the acreage before bankruptcy and had participated in a stalking horse bidding process that eventually ended up a gluey mess.

Samson’s acreage finally came to market in second-quarter 2017.

“By the time Samson came to the market, we knew the asset very, very well. We had already tried to buy it a couple of times,” Smith said.

The second 60,000-acre deal was nearly as tough a grind and involved an additional “private process,” he said. The seller was not disclosed.

“It just happened to come together at the same time, but we’ve been working on the Samson deal for at least two years and the other deal at least a year,” he said.

More broadly, the timing may not be entirely unconnected. In 2016 and early 2017, capital markets were “on fire”—driving up prices and making it difficult for Rockcliff to compete, he said.

In the Permian, the company faced those capital gusts head on. Rockcliff owned roughly 1,000 net acres in the heart of the Delaware and leased about 35,000 acres in the San Andres in New Mexico. As the company unpacked its Delaware data in 2016, acreage prices shot up by at least triple to $30,000 per acre or more.

“We’re certainly not down on the Permian. We were just late getting out there,” Smith said.

Now that the capital markets have come to a crawl—if not a standstill—sellers seem to be emerging.

“I don’t know if there’s a direct correlation with that or not. We are seeing obviously some windows of opportunity here that worked out well for us,” he said.

Smith is excited about the company’s acquisitions, which are largely HBP—a detail that “you can’t underestimate,” he said.

“You don’t have to worry about having to rush out here and make decisions you may regret just because you’re trying to hold acreage,” he said. “You can be thoughtful with your development” as well as infrastructure, facilities and marketing.

As for its Permian Basin acreage, it may end up a financial lever for the company. Smith said in August that’s what the company will seek to better understand over the next three months.

“How do we further develop those and what do we do with those assets out in the Permian?”

An enviable problem for any E&P.

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