Reese Energy Consulting is going full-tilt boogie Okla., for all ya’ll this Thursday. (If you’re new to this second-person plural pronoun, Okies, Texicans, and those of us in the Midcontinent tend to use it indiscriminately with zero apologies.) Okla-City-based Chesapeake Energy has announced a company name change following this year’s $7.4 billion merger with Southwestern Energy that’s expected to close next week. The combo creates the nation’s largest natural gas producer upsetting EQT’s number one position it’s held since 2017.

Of all the mega merger combinations of late, Chesapeake’s name-change to now Expand Energy might be the most bittersweet for us and all ya’ll, given its beloved founder and extraordinary shale gas history. Nevertheless, time and business go on, and companies reinvent themselves to do what they do best.

Meanwhile, Denver-based Validus Energy has won the lottery ticket to snap up Tulsa-based Citizen Energy in a $2 billion deal, merging the two largest Mid-Con rivals with operations in Okla., Kans., Texas, and Ark. This marks the second acquisition this year by Validus, which scooped up Mid-Con assets from Continental Energy Resources back in February for $450 million.

A little backstory here: Validus in 2022 sold its Eagle Ford position to Okla. City-based Devon for $1.8 billion—more than double the price Validus paid for those assets a year earlier from Ovintiv. The same year, Citizen Energy closed two deals that gave the company “a dominant Midcontinent footprint” to include 326,000 net acres, 720 operated wells, and 86 MBOED, which set it on a trajectory to become one of the top private producers in the U.S.