Centalion Pays $1.5 Billion for Silver Hill's 300 MMcfd Haynesville Gas Package in Second 2026 Basin Deal

Centalion Group agreed to pay $1.5 billion for a 300 MMcfd Haynesville natural gas package owned by Silver Hill Energy Partners, the company announced Monday. People familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal the deal valued the transaction at that figure; Centalion did not disclose a purchase price in its press release. The acquisition hands Centalion 72,000 net acres in the core Haynesville and Bossier development zones across Texas and Louisiana, along with expanded midstream capacity and saltwater-disposal infrastructure. The announcement arrived three days after Centalion completed its rebranding from Gunvor, one of the world's largest independent commodities trading houses.

From Trading Desk to Wellhead

Centalion, formerly known as Gunvor Group, rebranded on October 2, 2026, positioning the company as an employee-owned partnership with no single founding shareholder. With $144 billion in revenue and 3.3 million barrels per day of liquids trading in 2025, the company ranks among the world's largest independent physical commodity traders. Its previous upstream involvement in the Haynesville was limited to financial backing. Earlier in 2026, then operating as Gunvor, Centalion backed Western Natural Resources' $300 million acquisition of Haynesville gas assets, with Western Natural operating those properties in partnership with Centalion.

Monday's Silver Hill deal is Centalion's first direct upstream ownership in the United States at this scale. Gary Pedersen, Centalion's Chairman and CEO, said the acquisition adds a high-quality, scalable position in the core of Haynesville with a substantial development runway. With the Western Natural position and Silver Hill's 300 MMcfd combined, Centalion now ranks among the largest private operators in the Haynesville basin by production volume. The shift from backing operators to owning production directly marks a deliberate move toward vertical integration in US natural gas.

Silver Hill's Three-Year Production Build

Silver Hill Energy Partners III assembled its Haynesville and Bossier position through a series of acquisitions between late 2021 and mid-2023. Its 2022 purchase of 12,500 net acres and 100 MMcfd from Pine Wave Energy Partners anchored the portfolio in Caddo Parish, Louisiana and Harrison and Panola counties, Texas. The company operated up to four rigs to drive development efficiencies across its 72,000-acre footprint. Production grew from below 100 MMcfd at the start of the program to more than 300 MMcfd by the time of Monday's sale, a threefold increase over three years.

Kyle D. Miller, Silver Hill's founder and CEO, said the result came after years of disciplined expansion and risk control in a volatile market, and expressed confidence the assets would prosper under Centalion's management. The portfolio includes long-term gathering and transportation agreements alongside 300 gross operated drilling locations, according to Centalion. Those remaining drilling sites represent multi-year production upside beyond the current 300 MMcfd base. Jefferies served as Silver Hill's financial advisor, with Willkie Farr and Gallagher as legal counsel. Centalion used Greenhill and Kirkland and Ellis.

The Deal Math: LNG Arbitrage Drives the Premium

At the $1.5 billion reported price, the deal values Silver Hill's production at $5,000 per Mcfd of daily capacity. Henry Hub natural gas futures closed at $3.079 per MMBtu on Monday, per Yahoo Finance commodity data. At that price, 300 MMcfd generates annual run-rate wellhead revenue of $337 million, setting the implied deal multiple at 4.5 times annual run-rate revenue. That premium can only be justified by rising US gas prices, or by access to export-linked pricing through Gulf Coast LNG terminals.

The premium reflects Centalion's position as a global LNG trader with infrastructure to move molecules from wellhead to export terminal. European TTF natural gas surged above €60 per megawatt-hour in August 2026 following Strait of Hormuz supply concerns, per GuruFocus market data, converting to above $17 per MMBtu. After deducting LNG liquefaction tolling of $2.50 per MMBtu and shipping of $1.50 per MMBtu, a Haynesville producer with Gulf Coast LNG access could net more than $13 per MMBtu above extraction costs. At 300 MMcfd exported as LNG, that margin exceeds $1.4 billion per year, recovering Centalion's $1.5 billion purchase price in 13 months.

Centalion's Haynesville acreage sits within two to three hours of Gulf Coast LNG terminals, including Cheniere Energy's Sabine Pass facility in Cameron Parish. Oil Authority previously reported that US gas storage was running 125 Bcf below year-ago levels in September, with demand from Corpus Christi LNG Stage 3 drawing heavily on Gulf Coast supply. That structural LNG demand pull has increased the strategic value of proximate Haynesville production. The EIA forecasts Haynesville output at 15.6 Bcf per day across 2026, a basin total that Centalion's combined upstream positions now represent in material share.