Utica Shale oil producer Infinity Natural Resources has filed to IPO, bringing public equity into its 90,000 net acres, including leasehold it has amassed in the growing Ohio play.

The Morgantown, West Virginia-based E&P filed an S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission Oct. 4. Underwriters to date are Citigroup, Raymond James and RBC Capital Markets. An estimate of the number of shares and price range is not yet determined.

It expects to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "INR."

Speakers at Hart Energy’s Energy Capital Conference in Dallas Oct. 3 said public markets are increasingly receptive to go-public deals by small- and mid-cap companies.

In addition to Ohio’s Utica oil fairway, where Infinity is producing some 7,100 bbl/d, it operates in eastern Appalachia’s gassy Marcellus Shale, bringing total output to 25,000 boe/d, 29% oil and 48% liquids, according to the S-1 filing.

Formed in 2017 and backed by Pearl Energy Investments and NGP, Infinity got to work drilling for gas in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus. In 2021, it began accumulating Utica oil leasehold in Ohio.

Of Its 90,000 net acres, which are 83% HBP, 60,000 net are in Ohio and 30,000 in Pennsylvania.

Factoring for stacked benches—both the Marcellus and Utica and multiple, layered wells in each zone—in some areas, its “total horizon acres” are 119,000 net, it reported.

Proved reserves are 141.6 MMboe, 48% proved developed, comprised of 22% oil, 18% NGL, 60% gas.

Future-well inventory is 339 gross laterals—73 proved; 266 unproved—for 19 years of drilling at its current pace of 18 wells per year to D&C the 4.4 million feet of lateral, it reported.

Zack Arnold, Infinity president and CEO, told Hart Energy this summer that the Utica’s oil fairway in Ohio is an easier drill than Infinity’s Marcellus wells in Pennsylvania. Ohio’s Utica fairway is geologically quiet, meaning it  lacks faulting.

“We can do very long laterals with very few changes to our directional plan,” he said.

Infinity TD’ed a 14,000 footer in mid-June that stayed in the 3.5-ft zone the entire time.

“That’s hard to do in some areas of the Marcellus because you have more complexity and you have to chase that formation a little bit more,” Arnold said. “We don't have to do that in Ohio.”

Infinity’s optimal lateral is between 14,000 and 20,000 feet, he added.

In addition to Arnold, Infinity’s founders previously worked the Appalachian Basin for Chesapeake Energy, now known as Expand Energy, and for Northeast Natural Energy.

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