Bakken Shale oil producers Whiting Petroleum Corp. (WLL) and Oasis Petroleum Inc. (OAS) announced Monday, March 7, they would combine to create a $6 billion company.

Whiting shareholders will receive 0.5774 shares of Oasis common stock and $6.25 in cash for each common share of Whiting they own. Oasis shareholders will receive a special dividend of $15 per share.

Whiting shareholders will own 53% of the combined company, which will be renamed before closing the merger, while Oasis shareholders will own about 47% on a fully diluted basis.

Whiting CEO Lynn A. Peterson will serve as executive chairman of the combined company’s board, while Oasis CEO Danny Brown will continue in that position and grab a board seat at the combined company, which will be headquartered in Houston but maintain a Denver office. The companies have not revealed the new name of the entity.

The Deal predicted in August that conditions appeared to be finally perfect for Denver-based Whiting and Houston-based Oasis to explore a deal, especially considering that greater scale could allow the companies to better navigate the sustainability wave crashing upon the oil patch. The Deal also explained that activists could target the companies over their sustainability ratings.

After years under founder-type management teams who each seemed determined to build their legacies independently from one another, The Deal posited that Oasis’ new CEO, 46-year-old Brown, and Whiting’s new chief executive, 69-year-old Peterson, might be at the perfect stages of their respective careers to explore a tie-up in which their predecessors may not have been as interested.

Moreover, Whiting and Oasis had each recently cleaned up their balance sheets through Chapter 11and, post-bankruptcy, simplified their asset structures by exiting positions outside their core holdings in North Dakota and Montana’s Williston Basin.

Brown noted as much in the companies’ Monday announcement: “Over the last year, both companies have executed a series of deliberate strategic transactions, reducing costs and establishing a leading framework for ESG and return of capital.”

Together, Whiting and Oasis will hold 972,000 net acres in the Williston Basin and produce 167,800 barrels of oil equivalent per day. The deal, which the companies expect to close in the second half of the year, is subject to Whiting and Oasis shareholder approval.

At least one major Oasis shareholder, Kimmeridge Energy Management Co. LLC, which owns 4.9% of Oasis, is already on board with the transaction. In an emailed statement, Kimmeridge portfolio manager Mark Viviano said the firm is “highly supportive” of the deal, as “there are too many undersized and irrelevant companies drilling shale wells.”

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