El Paso Field Services entered the energy project financingarena with last week’s purchase of En Cap Investment Co. for $52million in cash and stock. Robert Phillips, El Paso Field Services’president, said all regulatory issues have been settled and thedeal will be accretive to El Paso’s earnings beginning April 1.

“This is far from our core business,” Phillips said. “But wewanted producers to know that if they have a big explorationproject in mind, El Paso can help them out in many aspects.”

The Texas-based investment company, with offices in Houston andDallas, was formed in 1988 and has created nine oil &amp gasinvestment funds with aggregate capital commitments exceeding $1billion. The funds use the capital from their pool of investors tofinance exploration and development projects through direct loansor equity investments. Commitments to these funds are currently inexcess of $600 million and are provided by fifty United States andEuropean institutional investors. En Cap has also closed $4 billionin oil and gas financing or advisory transactions.

En Cap principals David Miller, Gary Petersen, Marty Phillipsand Bob Zorich will continue to manage En Cap and its institutionalfunds and will join the senior management team of El Paso FieldServices.

“We’re going to let En Cap run itself as a stand-alone company,”Phillips said. “We are interested in the investors making goodinvestments and we are not going to put El Paso’s needs before theinvestors.”

John Norris

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