Assumed

Nabors Industries announced that it will buy Canada’s Enserco Energy Service Co. for C$15.50/share (US$252 million plus assumed debt of C$36.9 million) in cash or exchangeable shares, or about a 5% premium to Monday’s closing price on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The friendly offer follows Nabors’ C$93 million acquisition of Command Drilling last fall and sustains the trend of U.S. energy companies buying up their Canadian counterparts to capitalize on Canada’s growing share of the North American natural gas market. It also continues the consolidation in the drilling and oilfield service sector.

The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (EUB) last week assumed the lead role to direct operations following the uncontrolled release Aug. 26 of storage cavern ethane and the resulting fire from two wellheads at BP Canada’s natural gas liquids plant near Fort Saskatchewan, AB. While there were no reported injuries, EUB said the incident is “impacting other petroleum operations within the province involving both upstream natural gas liquids production and downstream natural gas liquids product use.”

The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (EUB) has assumed the lead role to direct operations following the uncontrolled release Sunday of storage cavern ethane and the resulting fire from two wellheads at BP Canada’s natural gas liquids plant near Fort Saskatchewan, AB. While there were no reported injuries, EUB said the incident is “impacting other petroleum operations within the province involving both upstream natural gas liquids production and downstream natural gas liquids product use.”

Royal Dutch/Shell Group’s new Chairman Phil Watts, who assumed the post at the world’s second largest energy company July 1, said the company’s production goals through the rest of 2001 will be met, but admitted that its future expansion could slow because of the sagging world economy. Watts, who inherited a company that has been knocked back in several takeover attempts recently, nonetheless noted recently that natural gas “is plainly the fuel of the future and we are well placed to be part of that future.”

Royal Dutch/Shell Group’s new Chairman Phil Watts, who assumed the post at the world’s second largest energy company July 1, said the company’s production goals through the rest of 2001 will be met, but admitted that its future expansion could slow because of the sagging world economy. Watts, who inherited a company that has been knocked back in several takeover attempts recently, nonetheless noted Thursday that natural gas “is plainly the fuel of the future and we are well placed to be part of that future.”

Norma F. Dunn has assumed the role as senior vice president of Communications and Government Affairs for El Paso Corp. Dunn will manage all local, state, federal, and international government relations, while retaining her current responsibilities as senior vice president over all corporate communications, public relations, media relations, regional issues management, and emergency response activities.

Traders correctly assumed prices would keep dropping Thursday,but many likely were surprised by how much the overall downtrendslowed. Except for some sizeable declines in the Rockies/PacificNorthwest, most points fell by about a nickel or less, and a fewregistered flat to up a smidgen.

Allegheny Energy’s $323 million acquisition of West Virginia-basedMountaineer Gas Co. (MGC) was completed on schedule thisweek. Allegheny Energy assumed the responsibility of Mountaineer GasCo.’s 11.7 Bcf of gas storage and 200,000 natural gas customers alongwith the company’s ownership rights from Energy Corp. of America (seeDaily GPI, Aug. 15).

Completing a deal announced last December, El Paso Energy Partners L.P. announced it has assumed control of El Paso Intrastate — Alabama Inc. (EPIA) for $26.4 million from its parent company, El Paso Energy Corp (see Daily GPI, Dec. 27).