Also

Canada’s Petrobank Energy and Resources Ltd. extended thedeadline of its initial offer today to purchase all shares ofRanger Oil Ltd.’s common stock. Petrobank also has entered abinding deal with Alberta Energy Company to sell certain naturalgas assets currently held by Ranger for $262 million.

Halliburton announced that Dick Cheney has resumed the role ofchairman and will also continue in his current position as CEO.Joining Halliburton in 1995 as CEO, Cheney served as chairman andCEO from 1996 until the merger between Halliburton and DresserIndustries in September 1998. Cheney will succeed William Bradfordas chairman. Bradford will retire at the end of January after threedecades of dedicated service to Dresser Industries and mostrecently Halliburton.

Mary Doyle, formerly policy advisor for FERC CommissionerWilliam I. Massey, has been named director of regulatory policy forDynegy Inc. Doyle also served in the gas pipeline rates division atFERC through the gas restructuring process.

Sonat is canceling today an OFO Type 3 that was implemented Tuesdayfor seven market-area groups (see Daily GPI, Dec. 28). The pipeline also said it hadresolved mechanical problems at the Bear Creek (LA) Storage Field.

Beta Oil & Gas Inc. of Tulsa, OK, plans to acquire privateoil and gas producer Red River Energy Inc., also of Tulsa, for$23.5 — assuming about $7.6 million of existing debt and issuing2.25 million shares of Beta common stock. The deal is subject toapproval by Beta shareholders.

Beta Oil & Gas Inc. of Tulsa, OK, plans to acquire privateoil and gas producer Red River Energy Inc., also of Tulsa, for$23.5 – assuming about $7.6 million of existing debt and issuing2.25 million shares of Beta common stock. The deal is subject toapproval by Beta shareholders.

Flat pricing dominated the cash market again Thursday, butregion-specific variations also continued. While numbers saw littlechange in the Gulf Coast, Midcontinent/Midwest and Southwest,Northeast deliveries took a dive and Rockies pipes saw gains ofabout a nickel or so. The Rockies and Northeast price movements,though divergent, were based on the same influences: changingweather. The East Coast is entering a warm-up period; meanwhile,recent record-setting warmth in the Rockies was a thing of the pastas a stormy cool front moved through the region toward the Plainsstates.

With the futures screen “crashing and burning,” as a producerdescribed it, November bidweek numbers also took a tumble Thursday.However, because much of the futures plunge occurred after swingtrading for today’s flow had been completed, incremental pricesgenerally were down only a nickel or so.

The U.S. portion of TriState Pipeline got some much-needed goodnews last week when FERC issued a preliminary determination on thenon-environmental aspects of the project after resolving a stickyjurisdictional issue. But whether it will be enough to kick-startthe troubled project, which is lagging far behind the competingVector Pipeline, seemed doubtful.