Companies

The global oil and natural gas industry will turn cash flow positive in 2017 for the first time since the downturn if the reduction in output promised by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries drives oil prices above $55/bbl, according to Wood Mackenzie.

Producers and their oil service brethren, looking to nourish their balance sheets after wandering in a price wasteland for two years, are receiving manna for equity offerings from the unlikely source of the oil price debacle in late 2014, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Sunoco Logistics Partners LP has agreed to acquire Energy Transfer Partners LP (ETP) in an all-stock deal valued at nearly $20 billion in a tie-up that would create the nation’s second largest midstream master limited partnership by enterprise value.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) said on Monday that it has fined CNX Gas Company LLC and Cone Midstream Partners LP a total of $184,000 for failing to construct pipelines as approved by the agency.

More than 30 small oil and natural gas producers have filed a lawsuit against Dominion Transmission Inc. (DTI) and affiliates in West Virginia, claiming that the companies breached their fiduciary duties by forcing the producers into unprecedented long-term, fixed-fee contracts for a pipeline project completed years ago.

Investor sentiment has been sour of late toward oil and natural gas producers, but for North American operators, the bright spot has been “resilience in reserves vitality,” according to BDO.

Privately backed financial firms have close to $1 trillion ready to deploy into the global oil and natural gas sector, with one-quarter now planning acquisitions by year’s end that mostly target North America and the Asia-Pacific, a survey by Ernst & Young has found.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. want a far-reaching lawsuit filed by the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s (AG) office to be moved from state to federal court. They accuse the state’s top prosecutor of invoking federal law to recover restitution, civil penalties and court costs for thousands of landowners.

Volatile commodity prices, supply risks and political/regulatory developments are the top concerns of U.S. producers, and the threat of bankruptcy has reached a six-year high, according to BDO USA LLP.