Haynes and Boone to advise DOE

Haynes and Boone LLP joins a select number of law firms that will represent the US Department of Energy (DOE) in project finance and other transactions that support the development of alternative sources of energy. Herbert A. Glaser, partner in Haynes and Boone’s Projects Practice and lead lawyer for the firm’s DOE representation said, “This represents an opportunity to assist the nation in achieving greater energy independence while being involved in some of the most important and cutting-edge transactions likely to occur in the alternative energy field.” Loan guarantees can cover up to 80% of a qualifying project’s total cost. The program is authorized to issue guarantees totaling more than $38 billion over the next three fiscal years.

Sevan secures construction financing for two semisubs

Sevan Drilling ASA, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sevan Marine ASA, has arranged, with two financial institutions, financing of up to US$1 billion (or 70% of construction cost) that converts into a six-year amortizing term loan following delivery of two deepwater drilling units. The debt facility is intended to help finance the construction of two deepwater drilling units (Sevan Driller II and III) that have been contracted to Petrobras and ONGC on charter contracts.

Lime Rock makes three North American investments

Lime Rock Partners has made three recent investments in the North American oil services and exploration and production sectors. First, the company committed $70 million in Braden Exploration, a Fort Worth, Tex.-based oil and gas producing company focused on the Barnett Shale. Second, partnering with Thomson Street Capital Partners, it completed the $99.4 million management buyout of Hibbing, Minn.-based Irathane Systems, a designer, producer, and applicator of protective coatings to pipeline and industrial markets. Lastly, Lime Rock closed a $120 million commitment to Calgary-based RMP Energy as part of a $240 million private financing. The startup producing company is focused on the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin.

Tenaska Capital Management closes $2.4B equity fund

Tenaska Capital Management LLC, an affiliate of Tenaska Inc., has closed TPF II LP, with more than $2.4 billion of committed capital. TPF II is the follow-on fund to the $838 million Tenaska Power Fund LP closed in 2005. TPF II’s will invest in the following sectors of the US energy industry: power generation (including renewables); natural gas storage, pipeline and other gas midstream assets; and natural gas and power infrastructure goods and services. Investors in TPF II include global financial institutions, endowments and public and private pension funds. Greenhill & Co. LLC acted as placement agent and Debevoise & Plimpton LLP acted as legal counsel for TPF II.

GE Unit partners with TriTex, invests $31M

GE Energy Financial Services, a unit of GE, has formed a partnership with TriTex Energy LLC to acquire proved oil and gas reserves in southeastern New Mexico for $31 million. GE Energy Financial Services is investing $30 million as the 98% limited partner. TriTex Energy is investing the balance as the 2% general partner and operator. The new alliance, TriTex Energy A LP, plans to invest an additional $14 million to develop and produce proved reserves over the next two years. Additional financial and operational details of the transaction were not disclosed. TriTex Energy LLC, based in Addison, Tex., owns and operates oil and gas reserves in Central Texas and New Mexico.

Cano sells Pantwist, slashes 2009 budget

Early in October, Cano Petroleum Inc. completed the sale of its subsidiary, Pantwist LLC, to Legacy Reserves Operating LP for $42.7 million. Proceeds were used to pay off all the senior debt of Cano. In addition, the company has slashed its FY 2009 capital budget to $35.5 million from $97.5 million. Jeff Johnson, Cano’s chairman and CEO stated, “Unprecedented turmoil in the capital markets, coupled with greater than 50% drops in crude oil and natural gas prices have caused us to respond by reducing our drilling capital budget.”

Repsol chooses CyrusOne to support supercomputer

Repsol YPF has selected CyrusOne, a colocated data services provider, to host and support its Kaleidoscope Project system architecture. This architecture is designed with Repsol’s Kaleidoscope Supercomputer at its core – an IBM-powered, ultra high-performance computing platform for energy exploration. Repsol recently completed installation of its 120-teraflop Kaleidoscope Supercomputer within CyrusOne’s ultra high-density data center in Houston. This installation supports Repsol’s production environment for processing Reverse Time Migration seismic imaging algorithms generated by Kaleidoscope.

Northern Offshore terminates rig acquisition

Northern Offshore Ltd. is terminating agreements made with Transocean Inc. regarding the acquisition of two North Sea semisubmersible drilling rigs. The acquisition by Northern Offshore affiliates is contingent upon obtaining lender consents, and the company has been unable to obtain consent on acceptable terms. The companies continue to discuss alternative structures to acquire one or both rigs, however, there is no assurance that an agreement will be made. Marion Woolie, Northern Offshore president and CEO, said “We are extremely disappointed that Northern Offshore affiliates will not be able to conclude this acquisition given the recent uncertainties in the global credit markets and the addition of the related financial obligations for these two semisubmersible rigs.”

Devon grabs stake in Drunkard’s Wash coalbed gas field

Devon Energy has completed a transaction to acquire an interest in the Drunkard’s Wash coalbed natural gas field in east-central Utah held by a subsidiary of Chevron Corp. Devon transferred its 14.2 million shares of Chevron common stock to Chevron. In exchange, Devon received Chevron’s interest in the Drunkard’s Wash field and $280 million in cash. Devon has held shares in Chevron since Devon acquired PennzEnergy in 1999. In August 2008, Devon retired exchangeable debentures originally issued by PennzEnergy that were associated with the Chevron shares. After retiring the exchangeable debentures, Devon was able to enter into this exchange transaction with Chevron. In the exchange, Devon acquired a 44% working interest in the Drunkard’s Wash field.

Carrizo gets $57.5M credit increase, forms JV with Avista Capital Partners

Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. has completed a redetermination of the borrowing base for its credit facility. A consortium of six banks has agreed to increase the availability under the credit facility by $57.5 million, or 35%, to $222.5 million. Carrizo currently has $120 million drawn and outstanding under the credit facility. Carrizo’s next credit facility redetermination is scheduled in the first quarter of 2009. Additionally, the company has recently formed a joint venture with Avista Capital Partners to pursue opportunities in the Marcellus Shale. Both companies plan to contribute up to $150 million in cash and properties to acquire and develop acreage in the play, including the dedication of all of their respective current Marcellus leasehold. The JV controls nearly 155,000 net acres in the play. Carrizo will serve as operator. Avista will fund 100% of the JV’s next roughly $71.5 million of expenditures currently projected to be spent over the course of the next 8 to 12 months. After that, the parties will share all costs in accordance with their participating interests.

Range Resources, MarkWest begin Marcellus processing

Range Resources Corp. and MarkWest Energy Partners LP have begun the initial phase of Pennsylvania’s first large-scale gas processing infrastructure with the launch of a mechanical refrigeration processing plant in Washington County. Over the past four years, the companies have invested over $700 million in leasehold, drilling, and infrastructure to bring Marcellus Shale gas to the local market. MarkWest is investing approximately $200 million to construct midstream infrastructure to gather and process the natural gas that Range Resources is extracting from the Marcellus Shale.

Aker Yards changes name to STX to focus on international market

Aker Yards, a large builder of cruise and offshore vessels, has changed its name to STX Europe to reflect the entry of the South Korean-based STX Business Group as principal shareholder in the company during summer 2008. The international shipbuilding group Aker Yards, with head office in Oslo, Norway, and all its subsidiaries, will share the common brand STX Europe. STX Europe specializes in designing and building advanced cruise ships and purpose-built vessels for offshore oil and gas operations, and other specialized ships.

Rodman Energy Group arranges $50M financing

The Rodman Energy Group has arranged a $50-million secured note mezzanine financing for Corpus Christi, Tex.-based Dewbre Production Development LP. The capital is being provided by Houston-based Guggenheim Partners to support Dewbre’s multi-well infill gas development program in the McAllen Ranch Field in Hidalgo County, Tex. Dewbre is a new E&P partnership formed by Dewbre Petroleum Corp. and Harbor Hill Interests LP. Management of the joint venture is led by Jerry Dewbre.

NGP Capital Resources invests $30M in Black Pool

NGP Capital Resources Co. has closed a $30 million Senior Secured Credit Facility with Black Pool Energy Partners LLC, a private company based in Houston. The company acted as agent and sole lender for the facility. Initial availability is $13.5 million with approximately $0.3 million funded at closing and is secured by first liens on substantially all of BPEP’s assets. Proceeds will be used by BPEP for capital expenditures to develop certain properties. BPEP is an oil and gas producer with interests in assets located offshore Texas and onshore in southern Louisiana.

SMT signs Talisman Energy

Talisman Energy Inc. has chosen SMT’s SMT KINGDOM software for exploration of new fields within its global new ventures team. The software is used for screening farm-in opportunities and conducting acreage evaluations; identifying and assessing key strengths and values of opportunities; evaluating key risks and uncertainties; filtering and importing/exporting of data; data loading, well loading, and seismic loading; and fully assessing and appraising new opportunities, often within short timeframes.

Saudi Aramco, ConocoPhillips delay Yanbu Project bidding

Saudi Aramco and ConocoPhillips will halt the bidding process associated with the construction of the planned 400,000 b/d export refinery at the Yanbu Industrial City, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, citing uncertainties in the financial and contracting markets. The current bidding process requested bids to be submitted during December 2008. Instead, it is planned that the project will be re-bid in the second quarter of 2009.

Bayou Bend engages Canaccord Adams as financial advisor

Bayou Bend has engaged Canaccord Adams Inc. as its exclusive financial advisor to assist the company in reviewing current strategic and financial alternatives. Alternatives being considered include the sale of some or all of the company’s existing oil and gas properties and assets, or potential business combinations with other oil and gas companies.

Perigon Solutions adds OpenSpirit integration

Perigon Solutions used the new OpenSpirit software developer kit to enable its iPoint Visualization System to access well data from any OpenSpirit-enabled data store and share interaction events among applications. Version 2008.7 of iPoint was released September 1, 2008. The iPoint product suite provides co-visualization of any wellbore data type, allowing geologists, petrophysicists, geophysicists, reservoir engineers, drillers and data managers to benefit from a single tool and interface with tailored workflows. Stafford, Tex.-based OpenSpirit Corp. is an independent software company focused on providing integration solutions for upstream applications and data. Aberdeen-based Perigon Solutions is a software, services and data management company that provides solutions for managing and visualizing subsurface wellbore data.

CGGVeritas makes play for Wavefield Inseis ASA

CGGVeritas has made an offer to acquire Wavefield Inseis ASA. The company will offer eligible Wavefield shareholders one newly-issued CGGVeritas share for every seven Wavefield shares. Aggregate equity value is roughly $310 million, an implied 31% premium for the Wavefield shareholders when compared to the closing price of November 7, 2008. With the transaction, CGGVeritas gains access to five recently-equipped, high capacity 3D vessels in addition to three mid 3D and 2D Wavefield vessels. Wavefield’s Optoplan seabed fiber optic technology for reservoir monitoring expands the product offering of Sercel. All newly issued CGGVeritas shares will be listed on NYSE Euronext Paris and NYSE.