Midland’s Charger Shale Oil Co. LLC has teamed with Oaktree Capital Management LP to form a joint venture (JV) focused in the Permian Basin, the companies said Sept. 8.

Oaktree pledged $600 million in an initial equity commitment with another $300 million runway commitment.

Prior to the JV, Charger said it secured more than 40,000 Delaware Basin acres with funds from management and other investors.

Charger has closed on the initial acreage and the company has development plans to expand to more than 85,000 acres. At full development, the partnership plans to target more than 100 horizontal well locations across multiple horizons.

Charger is led by several key executives previously employed by Tall City Exploration, which acquired and developed more than 34,500 core acres and another 48,000 prospective acres with $245 million of capital. The assets sold in two transactions in 2014 and 2015 for a combined $1.2 billion.

Joseph Magoto, president of Charger and former president of Tall City, was involved in the development and sale of Tall City’s assets. Under Magoto’s guidance, Charger intends to employ former Tall City executives.

“Leveraging the experiences of the team from Tall City Exploration and our other notable staff members has helped jump-start our company, allowing us to immediately acquire significant acreage and commence drilling this month. We plan to run two rigs one month after the company’s official funding,” Magoto said. “Oaktree’s funding represents an exciting step forward in our goal to build an enterprise in excess of 100,000 acres and to drill sufficient horizontal wells to prove up some 1,500 locations.”

Charger utilized the investment banking services of Jefferies in the transaction.

Oaktree is a global investment manager specializing in alternative investments. The firm has $98 billion in assets under management as of June 30. It is based in Los Angeles.

Darren Barbee can be reached at dbarbee@hartenergy.com.