South Korea's Korea National Oil Corp. (KNOC) has secured a bit of its energy future with an agreement to acquire Calgary-based Harvest Energy Trust of Canada. The state-owned KNOC will pay US$3.9 billion (4.1 billion Canadian dollars) for the company. The purchase price includes the C$1.8 billion in cash KNOC will pay for Harvest shares at C$10 each—representing a 37% premium over the October 21 closing price of C$7.30, and the C$2.3 billion in liabilities assumed by KNOC. The transaction is subject to approval from Canadian shareholders, and regulators. KNOC operates oil and gas fields in Vietnam, Libya, Peru, Indonesia, Nigeria, Yemen, Kazakhstan, Russia, Canada and South Korea. Harvest produces around 35,000 barrels of oil per day.
With $229M Talisman deal, Halliburton demonstrating market share gains
Halliburton, through its product service line Baroid, has been awarded a two-year contract, with multiple extension options, to provide drilling fluids and associated services to Talisman Energy Norge AS. The $229 million contract, including options, began in the third quarter of 2009 and encompasses all Talisman-operated fields on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. Although the contract began in Q309, the annualized sum amounts to less than 1% of consolidated revenues so should not be a factor in Q309. Pritchard Capital Partners views this as a positive sign demonstrating the company's market share gains in drilling and completion fluids, where its Baroid division is second with about a 25%-30% global share and gaining on MI-SWACO's ~40% share. Including this recent deal, Halliburton has won at least $1 billion of announced contracts for fluids and associated services over the past three months. This includes a $450M two-year extension by StatoilHydro ASA in the North Sea, a $190M five-year contract by Petrobras in offshore Brazil, and a $140M three-year contract by Total SA in offshore Angola.
Geospatial Holdings raises $1M, CEO converts $2M debt to equity
Geospatial Holdings Inc., through its new financial advisors, Convertible Capital, has completed a $1 million equity raise and Mark A. Smith, the company's founder and CEO, is converting $2 million that he has advanced to the company as a convertible loan, into equity under the same terms as the equity raise.
Miller to buy $115M in oil, gas reserves, Alaskan assets
Miller Petroleum Inc., dba Miller Energy Resources, has completed an agreement to purchase the assets of Cook Inlet Energy LLC including $115 million in oil and natural gas reserves, 600,000 lease acres with potential additional reserves based upon $8.5 million in completed 3D seismic geology, and numerous production facilities valued at almost $200 million for $875,000. Miller Energy Resources is an oil and natural gas exploration, production and drilling company operating primarily in the heart of Tennessee's Appalachian Basin.
Dynamic acquires Beryl, strengthens GoM presence
Dynamic Offshore Resources LLC has acquired Beryl Oil and Gas LP, a Gulf of Mexico focused E&P company. Dynamic joined with an existing Beryl owner and certain former debt holders to acquire Beryl in exchange for an equity contribution and the assumption of a portion of the existing Beryl debt. The acquisition includes all cash, working capital and existing hedge positions at Beryl. The company will be operated as a subsidiary of Dynamic. Including the Beryl acquisition, Dynamic has interests in over 550 producing wells and 200 offshore blocks covering nearly 400,000 net acres. Beryl's recent production has averaged over 55 Mmcfepd and should increase through year-end 2009 as repairs are completed to third party pipelines and facilities.
Lighthouse Financial, PFC Energy to combine energy trading, analysis
Lighthouse Financial, a full-service broker dealer, and PFC Energy, an advisory firm specializing in the global oil and gas industry, will enter a strategic partnership to combine Lighthouse Financial's expertise in energy and global portfolio trading with PFC Energy's oil and gas sector commentary and analysis. Terms were not disclosed. The oil and gas sector commentary will be branded as PFC Energy Lighthouse and will be available exclusively to Lighthouse clients in the US. Lighthouse's Rob Weinstein, partner and head of institutional sales and trading, and PFC Energy's Roger Diwan, partner and head of financial advisory, will co-head the partnership. Energy investors will also benefit from Lighthouse Financial's recently launched Global Portfolio Trading Platform consisting of eight professionals led by partner, Christopher Foxall, formerly with JP Morgan. Foxall will work with Ryan Cournoyer, head of energy trading.
Petrobras selects OpenLink for crude oil, refined products business
Open Link Financial Inc., a provider of cross-asset trading, risk management and operations processing software solutions, has been selected by Petrobras to provide its Endur and cMotion solution sets to operate the crude oil and refined products business in Rio de Janeiro, London, Houston, and Singapore. Brazil's Petrobras will utilize Endur in support of its oil and refined product trading business lines and will deploy OpenLink's cMotion suite for their crude oil logistics and refined products business lines.
Fugro, SMT team up in data rooms globally
Fugro Data Solutions Ltd., a global E&P data management company, and SMT, a provider of Windows-based geoscientific interpretation software, have teamed up to help a government license oil and gas blocks. Fugro won the contract to assist with promotion of the licensing round, in which over 50 blocks were on offer, including organizing global road shows and hosting five data rooms. The software used to showcase these blocks was SMT KINGDOM.
MMS chooses TGS for digital well log data management services
The US Department of Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) has entered into a new contract with TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Co. for well log data management services over the next five years on the Outer Continental Shelf. TGS will also provide the MMS with historic data from the Gulf of Mexico.
Wood Group subsidiary acquires Baker Energy
A subsidiary of international energy services company John Wood Group PLC has acquired the energy services business (Baker Energy) of Michael Baker Corp. for $37.9 million in cash. Baker Energy provides operations and maintenance services to oil and gas operators, both onshore and offshore. The company has a strong presence in the US and operates in various countries in Africa and Asia Pacific. Baker Energy had revenues in the year ended December 31, 2008 of $243.5 million and employs roughly 2,400 people. Baker Energy will operate within Wood Group's Engineering & Production Facilities division.
Mainland Resources secures $40M credit facility with Guggenheim
Mainland Resources Inc. has entered into a two-year, $40 million senior secured advancing line of credit agreement with Guggenheim Corporate Funding LLC, an affiliate of Guggenheim Partners LLC. Mainland will complete the purchase of 8,225 acres of oil and gas leases in Mississippi in conjunction with its previously announced agreement with American Exploration Corp. to jointly develop their contiguous acreage which collectively totals 13,225 acres. Guggenheim will participate through an associated company, as a 10% working interest partner in the drilling and development of the project. Initial advances will also be used to retire the outstanding debt on a $3.5 million bridge loan with Guggenheim Energy Opportunities Fund LP as well as fund the company's share of completion costs for its Stephenson Douglas #1 well in the Haynesville Shale being developed jointly with Petrohawk Energy Corp. In addition, the credit facility will be used to pay fees associated with the financing and fund other general corporate expenses. SMH Capital Inc. acted as exclusive financial advisor to Mainland Resources.
Schlumberger releases reservoir simulation, enterprise planning software
Schlumberger has recently released software aimed at reservoir simulation and enterprise planning. Schlumberger and Chevron Energy Technology Co., have released INTERSECT* to enable simulation of large complex reservoirs and highly heterogeneous systems. INTERSECT runs large and heterogeneous models - simulating tens of millions of cells, and accurately models complex geology and wells, honoring detailed reservoir characterizations with minimal or no upscaling. Additionally, the company has released its Merak* Enterprise Planning (MEP) that enables dynamic oil and gas business planning, including event-driven or evergreen plans. MEP leverages Microsoft technologies to provide a collaborative platform for oil and gas business applications to generate information in context using a robust calculation engine.
ATP defers construction cost for Octabuoy Hull
ATP has amended its agreement with COSCO Nantong Shipyard Ltd. to defer $99 million in construction cost for the Octabuoy hull. The deferral will be supported by a Letter of Insurance issued by the China Export and Credit Insurance Corp. (SINOSURE) to the benefit of COSCO. The Octabuoy, including the hull, topsides and related equipment, will serve as the floating production and drilling facility at ATP's Cheviot field (Blocks 2/10b, 2/15a and 3/1) in the UK North Sea. ATP has a 100% working interest in the Cheviot field and is the operator.
CARBO acquires BBL Falcon assets
CARBO Ceramics Inc. has acquired, through a wholly-owned subsidiary, the assets of BBL Falcon Industries Ltd., a supplier of spill prevention and containment systems for the oil and gas industry. No financial details were given. According to Pritchard Capital Partners, CARBO exited Q209 with cash of roughly $4 per share and zero debt, leaving the company with enough liquidity to maintain its dividend and acquire assets.
Boot & Coots enters Norwegian energy market alliance
Boots & Coots and add energy have entered into a cooperation agreement. The companies will cooperate on well control response and blowout prevention related risk and engineering services in Norway and on transient hydraulic simulations worldwide. Norwegian-based add energy, through its subsidiary company add wellflow, is a supplier of dynamic simulations and flow engineering for well control incidents and contingency planning.
Pason Systems snaps up Houston's Petron Industries
Calgary-based Pason Systems Inc. has acquired Houston-based Petron Industries Inc. Petron provides equipment, software and sensors to acquire, manage, control and communicate all aspects of drilling operations to drilling contractors and operators for onshore and offshore markets. Pason Systems, an oil services company, provides rental oilfield instrumentation designed and manufactured for use on land-based drilling and service rigs. Pason offers a package of services including data acquisition, well site reporting software, remote communications and Internet information management tools to oil and gas companies.
NOAA: El Niño to help steer US winter weather
El Niño in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean is expected to be a dominant climate factor that will influence the December through February winter weather in the US, according to the 2009 Winter Outlook released by NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. Warmer-than-average temperatures are favored across much of the western and central US, especially in the north-central states from Montana to Wisconsin. Though temperatures may average warmer than usual, periodic outbreaks of cold air are still possible. Below-average temperatures are expected across the Southeast and mid-Atlantic from southern and eastern Texas to southern Pennsylvania and south through Florida. In the Northeast, equal chances for above-, near-, or below-normal temperatures and precipitation. Winter weather in this region is often driven not by El Niño but by weather patterns over the northern Atlantic Ocean and Arctic, such as the North Atlantic Oscillation. In Alaska, milder-than-average temperatures are expected except along the western coast. In Hawaii, below-average temperatures are expected for the entire state.
Fugro-Jason introduces new petrophysics software
Fugro-Jason has released PowerLog® 3.1, the latest version of its Windows-based petrophysical interpretation software, adding two new interactive modules. The LSSA module provides a graphical view of isotropic and anisotropic thinly-laminated sand-shale sequences. Built for use with Baker's 3DEX™ multi-component induction tool, LSSA partitions formations into sand and shale beds using the Thomas-Stieber model. With the new Borehole Image Dip Picker, petrophysicists can pick, save, recall, edit, and share dips from borehole image logs.
Emerging from bankruptcy, Energy Partners sets hedging program
Energy Partners Ltd. has established its first hedging program following its emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings with the purchase of crude oil floors and the placement of swap contracts that cover the period from October 2009 to December 2011. The volumes hedged in the fourth quarter of 2009 average roughly 2,788 barrels of oil per day, representing approximately 58% to 70% of that quarter's estimated oil production. The majority of the volume hedged in the fourth quarter 2009 is in the form of puts with a floor of $60/bbl. For full year 2010 and 2011, the total volume hedged averages approximately 2,722 bbls per day, of which the majority is comprised of swaps with an average NYMEX price of $70.02/bbl.
More Oil & Gas Finacial Journal Current Issue Articles
More Oil & Gas Financial Journal Archives Issue Articles
