Eden Prairie’s Northern Oil and Gas takes unusual step to deny rumors of high-priced acquisition

Northern Oil and Gas took the unusual step of denying rumors that it is in discussions to acquire Granite Ridge Resources, another nonoperating energy investment company.

Unnamed sources told Reuters that Eden Prairie-based Northern Oil and Gas had made offers to acquire Dallas-based Granite Ridge. However, Northern Oil and Gas issued a press release late Friday saying, “The company is not currently engaged in formal negotiations to acquire Granite Ridge.”

Under Chief Executive Nick O’Grady and board Chair Bahram Akradi, Northern Oil has grown tremendously in the last several years by making strategic acquisitions of nonoperating interests in oil and gas properties and is the largest publicly traded nonoperator. Once primarily operating in the Williston and Bakken areas of North Dakota and Montana, recent acquisitions have diversified the company’s geographic holdings in the most prominent oil and gas production regions in the continental United States including the Uinta, Permian and Appalachian basins.

The company said it maintains an active book of prospects that it is examining at any given time.

“The company frequently sends expressions of interest to acquire assets or businesses in order to evaluate and conduct due diligence on potential opportunities.” the company said. “Many of these requests to conduct diligence are rejected.”

In 2020, Northern Oil’s revenue was $324 million, and analysts project revenue for 2024 will be $2.25 billion, making the company one of the fastest growing Minnesota-based public firms over those years.

Earlier this year, Northern Oil entered two joint ventures, giving the company about 20% interest in deals with Point Partners for Vital Energy and XCL for SM Energy. Those deals expanded the company’s interests in the Permian and Uinta basins.

Two of the more expensive deals, Northern Oil spent a combined $730 million. The deals increased overall debt, but according to company officials, the company still has about $1 billion on a revolving line of credit and its preferred liquidity ratio is slightly higher than they like. Officials have said they believe Northern Oil has the capacity to make more deals, while still paring down debt.

Company officials said Monday they did not have additional comments on the Granite Ridge rumors. The Reuters story claimed that Northern Oil had made two offers for Granite Ridge, at a 20% premium to its share price. Granite Ridge’s current market cap is about $810 million.

Granite Ridge owns wells and locations in the Permian, Bakken, and Denver-Julesburg oil and gas production regions, among others.

Northern Oil trades on Nasdaq, but more than 40% of its shares are controlled by Grey Rock Investment Partners. Granite Ridge was formed and went public in May 2022 when Grey Rock merged with a special purpose acquisition company. At that time, shares were trading just under $10 a share.

Prior to the Reuters story, Granite Ridge’s stock was trading around $5.62 a share, but the rumors sent its shares up 10% on Friday. After the Northern Oil issued its denial, Granite Ridge shares traded down on Monday, closing at $5.90 a share, 5% less than the close on Friday. Northern Oil shares on Monday closed at $35.63, up less than 1%.