The last year a Canadian hockey team won the cup (Canadiens '92-'93) was the year that Talisman Energy (TLM) was formed. While US hockey teams have been skating into the back door and snatching ole Lord Stanley for those fifteen years, the $US 24 billion Canadian gas producer has been skating into the US and snatching up a very nice chunk of the Marcellus shale.
While doing some background work for the recent Talisman Energy/Hallwood announcement, I found the company listing a substantial 640,000 acre position in the Marcellus play. This makes them the #3 holder behind Chesapeake (CHK) and Range (RRC). According to Talisman's June presentation, most of the acreage spans the NY-PA border with some in southwestern PA around Range Resources' highly successful horizontal completions. Furthermore, Talisman's Fortuna Energy unit [FEI] is heralded as the #1 producer of natural gas in New York state indicating that the infrastructure critical to developing the Marcellus is already in place.
Talisman's Fortuna Energy [FEI] unit currently has only 17 active well sites in Pennsylvania but with 20 vertical test wells drilled since '06 and plans to drill 4 more and 20 horizontals in the play by the end of next year, Canada promises to be a serious contender for the Marcellus Cup.
Disclosure: none
