Land in the Permian Basin, the busiest shale patch in the U.S. oil boom, is worth either $1,000 an acre or 50 times more, depending. On Sept. 29, Calgary-based driller Encana Corp. (ECA) announced plans to buy a company that owns a West Texas prospect for $7.1 billion, or about $50,000 an acre. One day later, Tokyo-based Sumitomo Corp. estimated its land in the same region was worth a fraction of that price when it took a $1.55 billion writedown on its investment. The disparity shows how fickle the oil business can be in the Permian, the source of more crude output than California and North Dakota combined. Despite assurances from some shale companies of assembly-line predictability,...
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