Continental Resources is set to become substantially bigger in the Permian Basin.

The privately held oil producer — which founder Harold Hamm took private in a buyout agreed in 2022 — has agreed to acquire FireBird Energy II, Continental said Thursday, in a deal that adds roughly 54,000 net acres in the Midland Basin along with 32,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) of production. About 69% of that output is oil.

The FireBird assets include approximately 147,000 net resource acres across more than six stacked-pay reservoirs and 307 gross operated development locations. Continental will operate about 95% of the acquired acreage. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The acquisition caps an aggressive expansion in a basin that was once secondary to Continental's better-known Bakken position, where the company built its name as a pioneer of North Dakota shale. Including FireBird, the company says it has increased its Permian acreage by more than 40% over the past 14 months.

"The Permian is integral to Continental's portfolio," CEO Doug Lawler said, citing the acquired inventory and its proximity to the company's existing operations. Lawler, the former Chesapeake Energy chief executive who took the helm at Continental in 2024, has presided over the company's broadest geographic push in years. Larger contiguous positions allow shale producers to drill longer laterals, consolidate infrastructure, and plan development across a wider inventory rather than treating each acreage block as its own little kingdom.

The purchase also extends the consolidation wave that has swept the Permian since 2023. Exxon Mobil's roughly $60 billion acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources and Diamondback Energy's $26 billion deal for Endeavor Energy Resources — agreed in late 2023 and early 2024, respectively — concentrated large stretches of the basin in fewer hands and left privately held, private-equity-backed operators such as FireBird among the remaining sellers of undeveloped acreage.

The deal is expected to close in September.

FireBird is backed by Quantum Capital Group, which partnered with the company in 2023 to build a scaled Midland Basin position.

Continental, meanwhile, has been expanding well beyond its traditional U.S. shale strongholds. Earlier this year, the company agreed to acquire interests in four Vaca Muerta oil blocks from Argentina's Pan American Energy, adding exposure to one of the few shale regions outside the United States capable of producing at meaningful scale. Continental has also entered a joint venture targeting unconventional resources in Turkey's Diyarbakir Basin.

But the Permian remains considerably closer to home — and considerably more developed. The basin produces more than 6 million barrels of crude per day, close to half of total U.S. oil output, and FireBird gives Continental another 32,000 boepd immediately, plus hundreds of operated drilling locations in the most prolific U.S. oil basin. The pace at which the company drills through those locations will determine how much new production the acquisition ultimately delivers.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com