US Oil's Merger Mania Won't End Well For Energy US Oil's Merger Mania Won't End Well For Energy Tyler Durden Wed, 10|28|2020 - 10:06 By Kriti Gupta, commentator for Bloomberg's Markets Live The long-awaited shale patch consolidation has arrived, sparking another bout of merger mania in the energy industry. It’s reminiscent of the one in the late 1990s, just as the Internet bubble was exploding. But don’t expect the stocks to rally this time. Parallels between tech in the 1990s and today are common. But there’s been little mention of what the energy sector went through at the same time and how it suddenly looks so familiar. History’s repeating itself as it appears energy can’t attract investors -- again. Then as now, the backdrop to energy’s MA boom is a collapse in oil prices. The difference this time, however, is the deals are happening at a quarter of the traditional premiums. During this pandemic era, four deals have already emerged: Chevron’s takeover of Noble Energy, ConocoPhillips’s acquisition of Concho Resources, Pioneer Natural Resources’s purchase of Parsley Energy and Devon Energy’s merger with WPX Energy.