US upstream dealing cooled in March amid volatility in oil prices, but Enverus anticipates higher oil prices will accelerate deal making.
Enverus subsidiary Enverus Intelligence Research (EIR) said deal making in the first quarter of 2026 was off to a strong start. The value of first-quarter deals reached $38 billion, which was the highest quarterly total in 2 years, according to a 13 May deal summary from the energy data analytics firm.
Andrew Dittmar, principal analyst at EIR, told JPT the three key themes of first-quarter deals were continued corporate consolidation, continued interest in US assets from international buyers, and a high demand for production-heavy assets.
The $25.5 billion merger of Devon Energy and Coterra Energy announced in February shows that corporations still view mergers and acquisitions as the most effective way to build position and add inventory, he said. Mitsubishi’s acquisition of Aethon Energy Management’s Haynesville Shale assets, valued at $7.2 billion, illustrates the continuing interest from international buyers in US assets, he said. Meanwhile, a subset of buyers using asset-backed securitization is targeting production-heavy positions.
Not all the deals made so far this year have been public ones. Deal values in private sales, such as Kraken Resource’s recent acquisition of Zavanna Energy, aren’t disclosed.
Such deals may be “fairly significant,” but without a value appearing in the headlines, it can be easy to underestimate market activity, Dittmar said.
And rising crude prices could prompt further sales. “We saw a lot of private companies sitting on the sidelines, I think, in a lower commodity price environment” as they waited for “a more constructive crude price to exit,” he said. “We thought that was going to take a couple of years to get to as we kind of slowly drew down the surplus global crude and product stocks.”
The shutting in of the Strait of Hormuz and the subsequent drawdowns in crude stocks vastly accelerated the rise in commodity prices, he said.
“These private companies now see this as an opportune window to take their assets to market and capitalize on that very constructive crude price environment,” which suggests a wave of assets will become available in the market, he said.
At the same time, he expects companies that have participated in corporate consolidations, like Devon and SM Energy, to make their own contributions to that wave as they trim their portfolios of noncore assets, he said.
The continuing shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz supports the idea of ongoing higher oil prices, Dittmar added. “The case for higher for longer has gotten stronger.”
Gas Exposure a Draw
Moving forward, he expects buyers to focus on areas with production-heavy assets, such as the Anadarko Basin in Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle. They are likely also to seek exposure to gas reserves, even if takeaway capacity is limited.
“Enverus and a lot of other forecasters out there are bullish on the longer-term look for gas, primarily driven by the massive LNG ramp that we see on the Gulf Coast, with a secondary contribution from power demand,” he said, adding that the Middle East conflict is driving up interest in US gas exposure from companies seeking long-term access to “reasonably priced gas” for LNG.
International interest in US reserves reflects a reverse dynamic—US companies are interested in foreign reserves, he said. “It's like capital's flowing in two different directions, but they're really looking for two different things. The international buyers are looking for stable gas supply and production. The US companies are looking for inventory, which is what we have a shortage of.”
Seeing Inventory
The markets of 2023 and 2024 were motivated by inventory, particularly in the Permian Basin.
“That appetite's there, but the Permian’s been highly consolidated. Anything that does become available in Permian is going to be extremely attractive,” he said.
He cited the recent New Mexico Bureau of Land Management lease sale, which garnered $4 billion in total bonuses as an example of interest.
“The appetite's still there for the Permian, it's just the lack of opportunities,” Dittmar said.
As a result, there will likely be deals across the Williston, Eagle Ford, and Denver-Julesburg Basins, as well as interest in Appalachian acreage.
In general, he said, it may be time to reset expectations as to what higher oil prices mean for the market. “How the market is repricing inventory for the environment we’re now in versus where we were through the first quarter in 2025 is going to be really interesting to see,” he said.
Inventory prices moved up even in 2025, despite a fairly weak crude price environment. Current circumstances may cause tier-one and other high-quality inventory to achieve an even larger premium than the past, he said.
“We may see some assets clear with inventory that breaks even at, say, above $55 or even above $60,” he said. “We really haven't seen this marriage in any kind of sustained environment of a critical shortage of high-quality US inventory plus low prices of $90-plus.”
Dittmar said the last time the industry had sustained high oil prices, “inventory scarcity weren't words that were on everyone's lips all the time. So, at the marriage of higher crude and inventory scarcity, I think, is going to drive what would have historically been considered shockingly hot deal values.”
