Bill Barrett, Fifth Creek form pure Colorado shale player

March 20 (UPI) -- HighPoint Resources Corp. started trading Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange, a company that represents a pure Colorado shale player, an executive said.

Shale energy company Bill Barrett Corp. completed its merger with Fifth Creek Energy and started trading Tuesday under the new symbol, HPR.

"We have undergone a significant transformation over the past several years and are positioned to embark on an exciting new era for the organization as a premier, DJ Basin focused company," President and CEO Scot Woodall said in a statement.

Bill Barrett in November sold off its acreage in the Uinta shale in Colorado to an undisclosed buyer for about $110 million. The company said the acreage in question produced on average 2,300 barrels of oil equivalent per day in the third quarter, with about 90 percent of that coming as oil. The total reserve estimate for the company's acreage was 12 million barrels of oil equivalent.

Woodall at the time said the sale put his company squarely in the Denver-Julesburg basin in Colorado, streamlining operations behind just one shale area in the state.

Colorado is rich in shale oil reserves, supplying about 3 percent of total U.S. crude oil production in large part from its Niobrara and DJ basins. As a whole, Colorado produces around 374,000 barrels of oil per day.

Bill Barrett, which announced plans to merge with Fifth Creek Energy in December, ended the year with proved reserves up 56 percent from year-end 2016. It reported a net loss of $77.8 million for the fourth quarter.