Viper Energy Partners LP priced an upsized debt offering as the acquisition machine in the mineral space comes off a record quarter of deal-making.

In an Oct. 10 release, Viper said it priced at par a $500 million offering of 2027 notes. The company, a subsidiary of Diamondback Energy Inc., had originally launched the offer for $400 million on notes on Oct. 7.

Proceeds from the offering will be used by Viper to refinance outstanding borrowing on the credit facility.  Viper net debt was at $200 million as of July 30, according to a company investor presentation.

According to a research note on Oct. 8 by Capital One Securities Inc., Moody’s and Fitch Ratings assigned B1 and BB-, respectively, to the Viper notes with a rating outlook of stable.

During third-quarter 2019, deal-making by Viper totaled over $1 billion of closed or committed acquisitions. Pro forma for all recent transactions, Viper’s acreage position now represents 23,990 net royalty acres, up from 15,870 net royalty acres as of June 30. About half of the acreage is operated by Diamondback.

“To date in 2019, our acquisition machine has now acquired over 9,000 net royalty acres for approximately $1.2 billion across more than 100 transactions, and importantly, we have more than doubled our exposure to Diamondback-operated properties,” Diamondback CEO Travis Stice said in a statement on Oct. 7.

The Viper portfolio is mostly located in the Permian Basin but does also include acreage in the Eagle Ford Shale.

Onshore