Deal

A budget-related bill passed by the Pennsylvania Senate last week would force the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to start over on a series of new regulations for the conventional oil and gas industry, and could jeopardize the agency’s more than four-year effort to implement new rules for shale drillers.

Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI) and Brookfield Infrastructure Partners LP have agreed to pay $242 million for the 53% equity interest in Natural Gas Pipeline Company of America LLC that they don’t already own.

Houston-based Blue Whale Energy North America, formed by a Chinese holding company to acquire U.S. oil and natural gas projects, on Monday said it had completed its $1 billion-plus purchase of more than 78,000 net acres in the Permian Basin of Texas from two private equity-backed producers. Blue Whale to date this year has paid $1.4 billion to accumulate a Permian portfolio across 85,000 net acres.

Marathon Petroleum Corp. (MPC) has thrown another $205 million at MarkWest Energy Partners LP unitholders to sweeten the bid for its master limited partnership, MPLX LP, to acquire the nation’s second largest natural gas processor, increasing the cash consideration to $1.28 billion.

Regulators in Europe have approved Royal Dutch Shell plc’s proposal to spend almost $70 billion to buy UK-based BG Group plc, a deal that would create the largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) company in the world.

In the heart of middle America there is a pre-winter dogfight unfolding in a federal district court in Omaha, NE, pitting a trading unit at the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) against the local public sector utility and its nonprofit natural gas buying cooperative. The dispute centers on a $719 million, 30-year gas deal the bank wants to terminate.

In a $757 million deal to transform into a majority oil company, Bill Barrett Corp. has agreed to sell the majority of its acreage in the Powder River Basin (PRB) and its remaining position in the Piceance Basin, in exchange for additional acreage in the Wattenberg Field, the company said Tuesday.

More stable commodity prices, private equity (PE) interest and a more focused portfolio approach by explorers led to a healthy merger and acquisition (M&A) market for oil and natural gas in the first quarter, with the United States taking more than a one-third share.

Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.'s $2.8 billion purchase of Devon Energy Corp.'s conventional natural gas and oil assets in Canada in the first quarter was the largest exploration and production (E&P) acquisition in North America and the second largest worldwide, according to Evaluate Energy.