Was this Shell buying more rights beside Strata? Strata's land value...
In case no one noticed, October 23, 2013 --- someone posted land
http://www.energy.alberta.ca/FTPOS/2013/20131023OON.pdf in the township adjacent southwest to Strata (township 5-19-86 and 5-19-85) --- and note L0164. The sale went through,
http://www.energy.alberta.ca/FTPOS/2013/20131023OSR.pdf --- clearly several of the postings were decoys, the main focus was L0164, which went for $2,000.91/hectare. Hello. Shell already owns all this land, so how could it be posted for bid? Simple - Shell didn't own the deeper carbonate rights, which is why they had to post the lease for bid. If you look closely at the rights, they were above and below the rights Shell already owns. Either Shell or someone else (borderline inconceivable it was anyone but Shell) bought this lease for $2mm, specifically for the carbonates. So assuming it was Shell, they valued the land at $2mm/hectare, and that's just for the deeper rights. Strata owns both the deeper carbonates and shallower sands, so you can make some wild guesses what their land is worth - remembering they own about 20,000+ hectares all in the immediate lease blocks.