Finance/Companies briefs, Apr. 5

April 5, 2001
Gasco Energy � Pannonian Energy � South Texas Drilling & Exploration � Mustang Drilling � Enterprise Products Partners � Acadian Gas � Norton Proppants � Integrated Production Services � Kinder Morgan CO2 � NATCO Group � and more �


Gasco Energy Inc. has completed its acquisition of Denver, Colo.-based Pannonian Energy Inc., a privately held natural gas company with interests in the Uinta basin in Utah.

South Texas Drilling & Exploration Inc., San Antonio, Tex., has acquired the drilling assets of privately held Mustang Drilling Ltd., Henderson, Tex., for $12 million. The acquisition included four drilling rigs, a partial rig, and rolling stock. The deal increases South Texas Drilling's rig fleet to 16.

Enterprise Products Partners LP has completed the acquisition of Acadian Gas LLC, a unit of Shell Oil Co. affiliate Coral Energy LLC, Houston, for $226 million cash. The deal was announced last year (OGJ Online, Sept. 25, 2000).

Norton Proppants Inc. has bought Aluminum Co. of America's 50% share in their proppant manufacturing joint venture. Norton-Alcoa Proppants will operate under the name of Norton Proppants Inc. Terms were not disclosed.

Integrated Production Services Ltd., a wellbore services company, has acquired 900,000 shares of Delaney Energy Services Corp. at $1/share. IPS now owns 4.8% of Delaney. It has offered to acquire all common shares of Delaney.

Kinder Morgan CO2 Co. has agreed for NATCO Group Inc. to build and operate an expansion to its CO2 separation plant for the Scurry Area Canyon Reef Operators Committee (SACROC) field near Snyder, Tex. The plant expansion will allow NATCO to process 140 MMscfd of CO2 and gas from the SACROC field. The capacity can go up to 180 MMscfd, said NATCO.

Aspen Group Resources Corp., Oklahoma City, Okla., has completed a private placement of 1,230,000 special warrants for gross proceeds of $1,845,000. Net proceeds will be used to accelerate the company's natural gas drilling activities.

Houston-based Industrial Data Systems Corp. and Petrocon Engineering Inc., also of Houston, have signed a letter of intent to merge. Petrocon is a privately held international engineering and control systems firm. IDS is a service provider and specialty manufacturer that provides engineering and control system services for pipeline and production facilities.

BOC Group has acquired the assets of Quality Gas Products Inc. of Baton Rouge, La., for an unnamed consideration. BOC said the acquisition will increase its penetration of the Gulf Coast area specialty gases market and add more than $750,000/year to revenue.

Ensign Drilling Inc. and an entity owned by Frank Carmichael have established Arctic Ensign Drilling Ltd. to provide drilling services in the arctic region of Canada. Arctic Ensign is a Northwest Territories corporation that is owned 51% by Carmichael and 49% by the Ensign Group. The company is building an arctic rig, expected to be operational in spring of 2002.

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP has completed its previously announced $1.15 billion acquisition of US pipeline and terminal businesses from GATX Terminals Corp. (OGJ Online, Dec. 1, 2000).

PrimeWest Energy Trust said 97% of Cypress Energy Inc.'s shares were tendered in response to PrimeWest's offer to acquire the company (OGJ Online, Feb. 19, 2001).

Westcoast Energy Inc., Vancouver, BC, said it completed the $75 million acquisition of the balance of the Empire State Pipeline, increasing its ownership to 100% from 50%. Empire is a 156-mile, 24-in. intrastate gas pipeline system that runs from the Canadian-US border near Niagara, NY, to interconnect with other systems near Syracuse. Its rated capacity is 525 MMcfd.

Black Hills Exploration & Production, a unit of Black Hills Corp., Rapid City, SD, has agreed to buy operating and nonoperating interests in 74 oil and gas wells from Stewart Petroleum Co., Denver, Colo., for $10 million. The holdings are in Colorado and Wyoming. Black Hills estimates the interests represent 10 bcf of proved reserves.

Partners in the North West Shelf LNG project said they will sell Kyushu Electric Power Co. Inc. 500,000 tonnes/year of liquefied natural gas beginning in April 2006. This is the fifth Japanese company to sign a letter of intent with the North West Shelf Venture.