Via the Wall Street Journal, news that Eni SpA has agreed to buy Burren Energy PLC for £1.74 billion ($3.59 billion), boosting Eni’s assets in Congo and giving it a foothold in Turkmenistan. While Eni is not one of the new Seven Sisters, it has executed a very aggressive frontier market strategy as of late, paying more than $9.5 billion for acquisitions in Congo, Angola, the U.S. and Russia in the first six months of the year as it seeks to boost its output growth and gain a presence in countries with strong potential upstream production assets.

“…Analysts said the Eni-Burren tie-up is a good strategic fit. Eni has assets in Congo, in particular the M’Boundi and Kouakoula fields, and surrounding fields where Burren has a minority interest.

This is a “good” acquisition, said Jason Kenney of ING, who rates Eni a “buy.” He said Eni knows the assets well as the companies overlap in Congo and the Italian company has a good accretive record from purchases.

Mr. Scaroni said that Burren’s presence in Turkmenistan will afford Eni “an interesting entry into a new market” that is still largely unexplored. He said that Eni could team up with Russia’s gas monopoly OAO Gazprom, with whom it has a longstanding relationship, to develop the Turkmenistan assets, though he didn’t specify exactly how. He also said that Eni “might find synergies with Kazakhstan,” where it has several large operations, including the mammoth Kashagan field in the northern Caspian Sea….”