Heerema Marine Contractors (HMC) has been awarded the URF-1 Risers and Production Flowlines contract for the first project in the BP Angolan program. This US$1 billion contract covers engineering, procurement, construction, installation and the testing of Pipe-in-Pipe production flow lines, service flow lines as well as vertical riser systems. The award is the first out of a framework of up to four potentially similar projects off the coast of Angola.
Scorpion snares $1.1B contract with Petrobras
Scorpion Offshore Ltd. signed a six-year contract with Petrobras for a newbuild deepwater semisubmersible for operations offshore Brazil. The revenue from this contract is estimated at US $1.1 billion. Scorpion has ordered a DSS-38 from Keppel Fels with delivery in December 2011. Total estimated cost of the rig, including owner furnished equipment, commissioning, project management and financing costs is $700 million.
Gran Tierra Energy, Solana Resources planmerger, management team
Gran Tierra Energy Inc. and Solana Resources Ltd. will merge. The transaction is expected to create an exploration and production company with a increased operating scale and balance sheet. Dana Coffield, president and CEO of Gran Tierra, will continue as the president and CEO of the combined company, while J. Scott Price, president and CEO of Solana, will join the board of directors of the combined company. The board will be comprised of seven members including the current directors of Gran Tierra: Jeffrey Scott, Walter Dawson, Verne Johnson, Nick Kirton, and Dana Coffield, as well as Scott Price, and the current chairman of the Solana board of directors, Ray Antony. Scott, chairman of the Gran Tierra board, will maintain his position as chairman.
XTO Energy completes $1.2 billion stock offering
Fort Worth, Tex.-based XTO Energy Inc. has completed its public common stock offering of 26,000,000 shares, priced at $48.00 per share, raising roughly $1.248 billion. The underwriters have exercised their option to purchase an additional 3,900,000 shares priced at $48.00, raising roughly $187 million. As a result, common shares outstanding increased to nearly 553 million. The company’s management did not sell shares in the offering. Joint book-running managers for the offering were Lehman Brothers, JPMorgan, and UBS Investment Bank.
Rancher Energy retains Growth Capital Partners as financial advisor
Denver-based Rancher Energy Corp. has retained Growth Capital Partners LP as the company’s financial advisor to consider strategic alternatives, including the possible sale of the company. Rancher Energy is an oil and gas exploration and development company with a targeted strategy to reinvigorate older, historically productive oil fields in the hydrocarbon-rich Rocky Mountain region of the US. Growth Capital Partners LP is an investment and merchant bank serving both private and public middle-market companies.
Exterran Holdings acquires EMIT; sells certain assetsto Exterran Partners
Exterran Holdings Inc. has acquired Sheridan, Wyo.-based EMIT Water Discharge Technology LLC (EMIT), a provider of contract water management and processing services to the coal bed methane industry, for roughly $108 million. Additionally, Exterran Holdings Inc. and Exterran Partners LP have completed an acquisition in which Exterran Partners acquired certain assets from Exterran Holdings for roughly $247 million. The acquired assets included contracts serving 34 customers, together with roughly 617 compressor units. Exterran Partners financed the acquisition with nearly $176 million of borrowings under its recently expanded senior secured credit facility and the issuance of approximately $71 million of new equity to Exterran Holdings, including approximately 2.4 million common units and approximately 49,000 general partner units.
Denham Capital to invest $165 million in Multi-Shot
Denham Capital will make a majority equity investment of $165 million in Conroe-Tex.-based Multi-Shot LLC, an independent provider of directional drilling services in the North American oilfield services industry. Denham will gain majority ownership of Multi-Shot through its investment. Other investors in Multi-Shot include The Catalyst Group (and affiliates), a Houston private equity firm, and Multi-Shot management. The existing Multi-Shot management team will continue to be responsible for managing the operations of the company.
INTEC, WorleyParsons merge to form new subsea services company
INTEC Engineering and WorleyParsons Sea have merged into INTECSEA. INTEC Engineering was acquired by WorleyParsons in April 2008. The companies have elected to combine full deepwater, subsea, pipeline, and floating production capability into a single entity. INTECSEA will be a global business unit within the WorleyParsons Group. INTEC’s Ed Smith will serve as CEO and Sea’s Pieter Wybro will serve as deputy CEO. The company’s headquarters will remain at the INTEC office and subsea and pipelines engineering capacity will be added to the Sea west Houston office.
Allis-Chalmers, Bronco Drillingterminate merger agreement
Allis-Chalmers Energy Inc. and Bronco Drilling Co. Inc. have terminated the agreement that would have led to the acquisition of Bronco by Allis-Chalmers. The agreement to terminate the merger was made when it became clear that Bronco stockholders would not adopt the merger agreement. Allis-Chalmers Energy Inc. is a Houston-based multi-faceted oilfield company. Bronco Drilling Co. Inc. is a publicly held company headquartered in Edmond, Okla., and is a provider of contract land drilling and workover services to oil and natural gas exploration and production companies.
Key Energy Services acquires US assets of Leader Energy Services
Key Energy Services Inc. has acquired all of Leader Energy Services Ltd.’s US-based assets for roughly $34.6 million in cash. Key will not assume any debt of Leader. Leader US has been a provider of coiled tubing, nitrogen, cementing and acid services. Key Energy Services Inc. is a large, rig-based well service company. The company provides oilfield services including well servicing, pressure pumping, fishing and rental tools, electric wireline and other oilfield services.
ERF Wireless forms new division to service oil and gas industry
ERF Wireless has recently formed a new oil and gas services division to address growing demand in the oil and gas industry for the company’s wireless products and services. Utilizing the resources of its expanding wireless broadband networks in Texas, New Mexico, and Louisiana, the company is now actively supplying specialized products and services to oil and gas customers. John Nagel, an ERF Wireless executive, will manage the oil and gas services division as its CEO. “As the price of oil and gas has risen in recent months to record highs, so has the demand for wireless broadband connectivity, bandwidth and other wireless services to support field activities,” said Dr. H. Dean Cubley, CEO of ERF Wireless.
Calyon goes live with OpenLink
Calyon has completed the deployment of OpenLink’s Endur system across its oil, US natural gas, base metals, European power, gas emissions and structured products within its commodity derivatives groups in London, New York, Houston, and Hong Kong. The initial phase of the implementation focused on the back-office operations areas for energy and base metals. Calyon Crédit Agricole CIB is Crédit Agricole’s corporate and investment banking entity. OpenLink is a developer of cross-asset trading, risk management, and related operational and portfolio management software.
