Reflecting broader trends in the global market, Foothills Exploration said Friday it would rework hundreds of recently acquired wells across Kansas and Oklahoma to produce more natural gas.

"The world is expected to remain dependent upon oil and natural gas as transitional energy sources until the world can produce enough quantities of green energy," Foothills said. "Natural gas in particular will play a bigger role on a global scale providing clean, reliable and abundant energy to nations for years to come."

The company on Friday announced it closed on the acquisition of Jubilee Exploration, based in Oklahoma. Jubilee had 545 oil and gas wells that were either abandoned or closed across multiple lease areas in Oklahoma and Kansas.

Those wells are situated in the Haynesville shale, the third-largest inland natural gas producer in the country. Federal estimates for March put gas production at an average of 16.5 billion cubic feet per day, which represents about 15% of total inland gas production.

Initial maintenance on the wells acquired from Jubilee could yield a collective production rate of around 2 million cubic feet per day, though that could go as high as 8 million cubic feet per day during the first two years of production.

Spread out across four lease areas, Foothills last week closed on the acquisition of 21 oil and natural gas wells in southwestern Oklahoma for undisclosed terms.

Natural gas has grown in importance since Russian military forces entered Ukrainian territory a year ago Friday. For some Eastern European countries such as Poland, Russia was the only major supplier of natural gas to the country.

With support from liquefied natural gas derived from inland shale basins, however, European markets have adjusted to the loss of Russian products due to war-related sanctions.

While the United States is a clear leader in natural gas, the trends are global.

"We have been focusing our exploration and production strategy mainly on gas, leveraging our own production and diversifying our investments across different countries," Claudio Descalzi, the head of Italian energy company Eni, said earlier this week. "This has enabled us to put in place our Plan aimed at replacing 20 billion cubic meters of Russian gas by 2025."

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