Rewind to 2018. The Great Permian Land Rush is pronounced over and done. The top acreage has been bought and paid for, heralding a new phase of consolidation in the Beverly Hills of crude oil riches. 2018 is also the year Houston-based startup XCL Resources introduced itself. But not to the Permian. Far from it.

Reese Energy Consulting today is following the latest news from X2 Resources, brought to you by the same folks behind XCL—an early developer of Utah’s Uinta Basin. The company would go on to become one of the region’s largest operators, turning an initial 10 MBPD into 60 MBPD over the years. Two Permian players happened to like that ditty. In June last year, Denver-based SM Energy and Minn.-based Northern Oil and Gas (NOG) entered the Uinta in an 80/20 partnership to acquire XCL’s assets for $2.55 billion.

As a company, XCL might have been pronounced over then, but the team behind it was hardly done. Now as X2 Resources, the hunt for big game in the Lower 48 is on. The once pure-play Uinta producer has locked down enough capital commitments from three PE firms to snap up acquisitions in the $500 million to multi-billion-dollar range. It’s yet to be seen if X2 re-enters the Uinta or, unlike 2018, bite off a chunk of the Permian.