Chevron, PDC merger creates largest oil company in Colorado

Chevron Corp. is buying PDC Energy in a $7.6 billion deal that will make it by far and away the largest oil and gas producer in Colorado and continues a trend in the state of bigger companies gobbling up smaller ones.

PDC Energy shareholders will get stock in San Ramon, California-based Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company by share value after ExxonMobil. Chevron will also assume more than $1 billion in PDC Energy debt.

For the money Chevron will get 275,000 acres adjacent to the company’s present holdings in the Denver-Julesburg Basin, in Weld County, with estimated reserves of 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent, a measure of oil and gas combined.

Chevron will also get 25,000 acres Denver-based PDC Energy owns in Texas in the Permian Basin, the…