Utica Oil E&P Infinity Natural Resources’ IPO Gains 7 More Bankers

Seven more investment bankers have signed on as managers of Utica oil producer Infinity Natural Resources’ IPO, according to an updated S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Citigroup, Raymond James and RBC Capital Markets were named in the initial filing Oct. 4 as the offering’s joint book-running managers.

Since then, Infinity reported Nov. 27 that more have joined—Keybanc Capital Markets and Stephens as senior co-managers; Comerica Securities, First Citizens Capital Securities and BTIG as co-managers; and BOK Financial Securities and Zions Capital Markets as junior co-managers.

The number of shares Infinity estimates it will offer in the IPO or an estimated price range have not yet been provided in its SEC filings. The stock is to trade as INR on the NYSE.

Meaningful deal-price comparisons for the Utica oil window on a per-flowing-boe basis are not available as most operators’ entry has been through boots-on-the-ground leasing and acquisitions of mostly undeveloped property.

The Infinity IPO is expected to provide a first-look at the public market’s valuation of the Utica oil play.

‘Getting bigger, still’

Tim Parker, CTO for privately held Encino Energy, told Hart Energy in early November that delineation is still underway for the new play as “we're actively pushing it updip and we're not to the limit of that yet—or we don't think we are.”

When Encino, which is Ohio’s No. 1 oil producer now with 43,000 bbl/d, entered the play in 2018, “We didn't know how far updip it was going to go. We still don't. It's getting bigger, still.” 

Shown to date, though, is that the economic width of the more than 140-mile north-to-south oily fairway is at least 15 miles and “maybe as much as 25,” he said.

Publicly held EOG Resources, which joined in the play in 2022, reported earlier this month that it was sending a second rig to its leasehold there and putting a frac spread to work full-time.

It had been delineating its leasehold with an initial 25 wells, one rig and a part-time frac spread. It brought nine more Utica wells on in third-quarter 2024, taking its new-drill dataset in the play to 25 wells.

Pearl, NGP

Backed by energy-focused private-equity firms Pearl Energy Investments and NGP, Morgantown, West Virginia-based Infinity entered the Marcellus play in 2018 in southwestern Pennsylvania.

But the IPO is expected to generate the greatest interest in Infinity’s oily Utica shale asset in Ohio where it is producing 7,110 bbl/d from some of its 59,992 net acres to date, up from 300 bbl/d that the initial footprint was producing at the time of entry in 2021.

Among all operators in the oil-weighted Utica, 297 wells have been brought online since 2019, Infinity reported in the S-1, “delineating the core of the play located in Carroll, Tuscarawas, Harrison, Guernsey, Noble, Muskingum and Morgan counties.”

Among operators’ new wells beginning in 2021, first-90-day IPs have averaged 902 bbl/d on a 15,000-ft-lateral basis among the 208 wells that were online at least 90 days through this past September, “making the volatile oil window one of the leading oil resource plays in the Lower 48,” Infinity reported.

“When combined with the play’s low operating costs, low water production and low drilling costs, the Utica’s volatile oil window maintains one of the lowest breakeven costs among all oil resource plays in the United States,” it added.

Of its Ohio Utica leasehold, 39,815 net acres were picked up in October of 2023 from Utica Resource Ventures and PEO Ohio for $279 million in Washington, Morgan, Noble and Guernsey counties, including 54 existing horizontals.

Earlier this year, it added 5,705 net acres under Salt Fork State Park in Guernsey County in a state lease sale.