Dallas-based Remington Oil and Gas Corp. has set a special shareholders meeting for June 29 to approve the merger and acquisition by Helix Energy Solutions Group Inc. Helix, formerly Cal Dive International, agreed earlier this year to pay $27 in cash and provide Remington shareholders 0.436 shares of Helix for each Remington share (see Daily GPI, Jan. 24).

Speaking at the UBS Global Oil & Gas Conference in Austin, TX on Tuesday, Helix President Martin Ferron said he expects the merger to be approved and completed shortly after the shareholder meeting. Helix, which took on its new name in March, had mostly been viewed as an oil services company, but Ferron said the Remington purchase gives Helix a strong entry into the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GOM).

After the Remington acquisition, Helix will be producing more than 220 Mcfe/d this year, with proven reserves totaling more than 500 Bcfe (year-end 2005). It also will have more than 30 combined deepwater fields, more than 1,400 Bcf of combined risk prospects and an associated services backlog worth more than $1 billion.

The Remington acquisition made sense from several angles, Ferron said. There is an “increasing number of mature and small reservoirs, an increasing ratio of contribution to global production from marginal fields, increasing subsea development and a highly cyclical market,” which are “all trends very much in evidence in the Gulf of Mexico today.”

Cal Dive’s former strategy was to acquire “mature, sunset properties at attractive prices,” and it operated 40 fields, 120 platforms and 500 fields. Under the “Helix model,” Ferron said the Remington acquisition offers the company “access to both deepwater prospects and the means to exploit them,” and operatorship in the deepwater.

“Having 100% ownership of Remington properties allows Helix to control its own destiny,” Ferron said.

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