Private equity-backed US shale assets are being sold at a faster clip, highlighted by Kayne Anderson and Warburg Pincus agreeing to sell WildFire Energy to Magnolia Oil & Gas for about $4.1bn. Matador Resources also agreed to buy EnCap-backed Paloma Permian for $1.3bn. The deals are concentrated in core areas such as Eagle Ford and the Delaware basin, involving hundreds of thousands of net acres and tens of thousands of barrels of oil equivalent per day. The pace has exceeded expectations and reflects buyers’ willingness to ascribe higher values to upstream assets in a higher-price environment.