Sanchez Energy Corp., a U.S. company focused on shale in the Gulf Coast region, said it made a strategic move by buying acreage in the Eagle Ford shale.

Sanchez Energy Corp. said it closed on a deal with a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell to buy acreage in the Eagle Ford shale in the southern United States.

"This strategic acquisition adds significant reserves, production and future resource potential in an area of the Eagle Ford Shale," Tony Sanchez III, the company's president and chief executive officer, said in a Monday statement.

In January, the company, which has headquarters in Houston, said its primary focus for the year would be in the Eagle Ford shale.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration singled out Eagle Ford as one of the premier shale basins in the country. Last year, the government estimated natural gas production from Eagle Ford was near 5 billion cubic feet per day.

In May, the company announced plans to pay $639 million for Shell's 106,000 acres in the shale play, doubling its holdings. About 60 percent of the 24,000 barrels of oil equivalent produced from the acreage in the first quarter of the year was oil.