Cabot to pay $602M to increase Bossier, Haynesville potential

Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. has executed a definitive agreement to acquire producing properties, leasehold acreage, and a gathering infrastructure from a private party for $602.8 million. The acquired acreage lies in immediate proximity to the company’s existing acreage, which enhances its ongoing development of the Pettet, Travis Peak, and Cotton Valley formations. It also gives the company exposure to the emerging Bossier/Haynesville opportunities.

Whiting closes $365M Flat Rock acquisition; increases budget by $25M

Whiting Petroleum Corp. has completed its acquisition from Chicago Energy Associates LLC of interests in producing gas wells and development acreage in the Flat Rock field in Uintah County, Utah for $365 million in cash. Whiting funded the purchase price with borrowings under its existing bank credit facility. After allocation of $35 million of the purchase price to the gas gathering facilities, the remaining $330 million results in an acquisition cost for the proved reserves of $2.86 per thousand cubic feet of gas equivalent. Due to the additional operated and non-operated drilling at the Flat Rock field, the company is increasing its exploration and development budget to $765 million from $740 million.

Rigdon Marine agreesto be acquired by GulfMark Offshore

GulfMark Offshore Inc. has agreed to acquire Rigdon Marine Corp. The combined company will initially operate 90 vessels with an additional 16 vessels under construction for delivery through 2010. The combined fleet will have 24 vessels in the domestic Gulf of Mexico bringing the total fleet to 34 vessels based in the Americas, 42 vessels based in the North Sea, and 14 in Southeast Asia. GulfMark will acquire 100% of the outstanding equity interest of Rigdon Marine and its holding company for $150 million in cash and roughly 2.1 million shares of GulfMark common stock, plus assumption of nearly $268 million in debt and approximately $19 million to complete the vessels under construction. GulfMark expects to finance the cash portion with cash on hand and borrowings under its current $175 million revolver. Larry Rigdon will join the GulfMark board of directors. The transaction is expected to close during the third quarter of 2008.

United Energy Group to invest US$215Min Transmeridian Exploration

United Energy Group Ltd. is investing roughly US$215 million in Transmeridian Exploration Inc. UEG will acquire at least 90% of the outstanding shares of: 15% senior redeemable convertible preferred stock, and 20% junior redeemable convertible preferred stock of Transmeridian. UEG will be entitled to appoint up to four directors of Transmeridian. Citigroup Global Markets Inc. is acting as exclusive financial advisor to United Energy. Shearman & Sterling LLP is acting as legal counsel to United Energy in relation to US law and Slaughter and May is acting as legal counsel to United Energy in relation to Hong Kong law. Jeffries & Co. is advising Transmeridian’s board. Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP is acting as legal counsel to Transmeridian.

Linn Energy sells Verden assets to privately-held Laredo Petroleum for $185M

Linn Energy LLC has agreed to sell certain of its assets in the Verden area in Oklahoma to Laredo Petroleum Inc. for cash consideration of $185 million. The assets include roughly 50,000 net acres and proved reserves of approximately 45 bcfe and currently produce approximately 12 MMcf of natural gas equivalent per day. Linn Energy will retain the option to participate in future qualifying Verden wells after a substantial portion of the drilling risk has been mitigated. Laredo Petroleum Inc. is a privately-held exploration and production company based in Tulsa, Okla., with Warburg Pincus as its equity investor.

RBC to acquire Richardson Barr

RBC has signed an agreement to acquire Houston-based energy advisory firm Richardson Barr & Co. Terms were not disclosed. As part of its mandate, the new entity, to be known as RBC Richardson Barr, will provide A&D support to RBC’s North American energy group in both the US and Canada.

ACON Investments buys privately-held Chroma

ACON Investments LLC has acquired Chroma Oil & Gas LP, a privately-held exploration and production company based in Houston. ACON provided the majority equity investment required to complete the purchase of significant additional onshore oil and gas assets in South and East Texas and in South Louisiana from an undisclosed private company. Chroma’s combined operations include more than 236 wells producing approximately 17 MMcfe/d. Chroma’s senior credit facility was arranged by BNP Paribas.

Schlumberger acquires IES

Schlumberger has acquired IES Integrated Exploration Systems, the Aachen, Germany-based supplier of advanced petroleum systems modeling software and services for the exploration and production industry. The combination of surface seismic data with Schlumberger measurement technologies, integrated with petroleum systems modeling and other risk management technologies, may lead to reduced uncertainties and could enable customers to better manage their exploration risk.

Pacific Energy unloads onshore California assets for $135 million

Pacific Energy Resources Ltd. will sell 100% of its onshore California producing assets, which include interests in the Los Angeles basin and the San Joaquin basin, for $135 million in cash. The majority of the proceeds will be used to pay down outstanding corporate debt.

PXP to make $300Msenior note offering

Plains Exploration & Production Co. will offer $300 million of senior notes due in 2018. Net proceeds will be used to repay amounts currently outstanding under its revolving credit facility. J.P. Morgan Securities Inc., Banc of America Securities LLC, Lehman Brothers Inc., and Merrill Lynch & Co. will act as joint book-running managers for the offering.

BreitBurn acquires Provident Energy Trust’s MLP interests

BreitBurn Energy Partners LP has acquired all of the limited partnership and indirect general partnership interests of BreitBurn previously owned by Provident Energy Trust for $345 million. As part of the transaction, the partnership will acquire a 100% interest in BreitBurn GP LLC, the general partner of the partnership. The acquisition was financed with incremental borrowings under an amended and restated credit agreement between BreitBurn’s wholly-owned subsidiary, BreitBurn Operating LP, and a group of banks with Wells Fargo Bank NA as agent. The bank group approved an amendment to the credit agreement facilitating the repurchase and increasing the borrowing base from $750 million to $900 million. Following completion of the transaction, the Partnership’s pro forma debt totaled $724 million, comprised of $371 million in existing debt and $353 million in additional debt to finance the acquisition and related expenses. In addition, three directors, Randall J. Findlay, Thomas W. Buchanan, and Grant D. Billing have resigned from the BreitBurn GP board.

Aabar sells upstream oil unit Pearl Energy

Aabar Energy PJSC has completed the sale of its wholly-owned exploration and production subsidiary Pearl Energy Ltd. to Mubadala Development Co. PJSC. All issued shares in Pearl have been transferred to the Mubadala group for a debt free cash adjusted value of roughly $833.3 million.

SMT sells 15,000th license

Seismic Micro-Technology (SMT) has reached the milestone of selling 15,000 licenses to companies in the upstream oil and gas industry. Two thousand five hundred organizations in more than 85 countries around the world are now using SMT’s KINGDOM software suite for interpretation, modeling, analytics, and data management. With the release of KINGDOM 8.2, SMT continues its focus on ease of use through the new Flex Grid mapping capability. Seismic Micro-Technology Inc. (SMT) is a provider of Windows-based geophysical and geological interpretation software to the upstream exploration and production (E&P) industry.

Beach drums up A$191Mfor Egyptian development

Beach Petroleum has completed a placement of shares to institutional and sophisticated investors, raising A$191 million for the company’s ongoing expansion. The institutional placement resulted in a total of 133,637,474 shares being placed at A$1.43 per share. The majority of the capital raised will be used to fund the acquisition of three previously announced onshore and offshore Egyptian acquisitions. Beach has entered into agreements to acquire interests in the offshore North Shadwan and South East July concessions and onshore North Qarun concession. These interests are non-operated and range between 20-25% of the relevant concession. The total costs of these acquisitions is roughly A$150 million.

Ivanhoe acquires Talismanassets; Talisman earnsinterest in Hallwood Energy

Ivanhoe Energy Inc. has signed a preliminary agreement with Talisman Energy Canada to acquire all of Talisman’s interests in three leases located the Athabasca oil sands region in the Province of Alberta, Canada for C$105 million. Sproule Associates Ltd. has estimated two of the three leases contain roughly 294 million barrels of contingent bitumen resources out of approximately 752 million barrels of discovered petroleum initially-in-place. Additionally, Talisman Energy Inc.’s wholly owned limited partnership, FEI Shale LP (Fortuna) has reached agreement with Hallwood Energy LP. The agreement calls for a financial commitment of up to US$125 million by Fortuna over a period of 12 to 18 months. Upon completion of the capital program, Fortuna will have earned a one-third interest in substantially all of Hallwood’s assets, including properties in Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana, for a total of 108,000 acres.

NGP Capital Resources puts $32.8 million intoATP’s monetization

Houston-based ATP Oil & Gas Corp. has completed the sale of a limited term overriding royalty interest for $82 million at a value of $14.25 per Mcfe. The volumes associated with this limited term override are less than 1% of its company-wide proved reserves at year-end 2007. One company involved is NGP Capital Resources Co. The company acquired a limited term overriding royalty interest in certain oil and gas producing properties operated by ATP for roughly $32.8 million. NGP Capital Resources Co. is a closed-end investment company that has elected to be treated as a business development company.

CE2 Capital Partners, Energy Capital Partners form new company

CE2 Capital Partners LLC and Energy Capital Partners have formed CE2 Carbon Capital LLC, a company dedicated to building a portfolio of carbon offsets and other assets focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in North America. The company will aggregate positions in carbon offsets, renewable energy credits, and other GHG products and assets. CE2 Carbon will provide long-term agreements to purchase carbon offsets and RECs and invest in carbon-reducing projects. CE2 Capital Partners LLC is a San Diego-based manager of environmental and energy commodities and assets in market-based programs including those designed to combat climate change, acid rain, smog, particulate pollution and to create more clean energy generation. ECP is a private equity firm dedicated to investing in the power generation, midstream gas, renewable and electric transmission sectors of North America’s energy infrastructure.

Tekoil files for Chapter 11 protection from affiliateof Golman Sachs

Houston-based Tekoil & Gas Corp. has filed for protection under Chapter 11. Mark Western, chairman of the board and CEO, stated that “the chapter 11 filing will allow Tekoil to restructure its debt and move forward on plans to rework and develop assets which should in the long-term benefit Tekoil, its creditors and shareholders.” Tekoil’s chapter 11 petition halted efforts by an affiliate of Goldman Sachs to foreclose on Tekoil’s majority interest in Tekoil Gulf Coast LLC, which owns offshore leases in the Gulf of Mexico. Tekoil is a technology-driven company focused on the development, acquisition, stimulation, rehabilitation and asset improvement of small to medium-sized oil and gas fields.

PetroSun consolidates oilfield services

PetroSun Inc. has formed PetroSun Oilfield Inc. as a wholly-owned subsidiary to consolidate all of its oilfield service and supply operations. PetroSun Oilfield will be headquartered in Shreveport, La. The initial operations of this newly formed subsidiary will focus on oilfield tubulars, supplying seamless tubing and casing to company projects and the Ark-La-Tex market.