Debt

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP (KMP) is acquiring Copano Energy LLC in a deal worth $5 Billion, including debt. Midstreamer Copano is active mainly in Texas, Oklahoma and Wyoming and has been a joint venture (JV) partner with KMP in the Eagle Ford Shale.

Debt-tarnished Quicksilver Resources Inc. said Thursday it is still in talks to sell a nonoperated minority working interest in its Barnett Shale assets and is negotiating a potential joint venture (JV) in the Horn River Basin in northeast British Columbia. Investors have been awaiting deals on both fronts for some time.

Debt-tarnished Quicksilver Resources Inc. said Thursday it is still in talks to sell a nonoperated minority working interest in its Barnett Shale assets and is negotiating a potential joint venture (JV) in the Horn River Basin in northeast British Columbia. Investors have been awaiting deals on both fronts for some time.

Mining giant Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. last week put a $9 billion cash-and-stock transaction — $20 billion total including debt — on the table to buy U.S. producers Plains Exploration & Production Co. (PXP) and McMoRan Exploration Co., a deal that is expected to vault Freeport into the upper ranks of domestic producers but initially with faltering shareholder support.

Targa Resources Partners LP said Thursday it will acquire all of Saddle Butte Pipeline LLC’s ownership of its Williston Basin crude oil pipeline and terminal system as well as its natural gas gathering and processing operations for $950 million in cash.

GreenHunter Water LLC recently began handling water disposal services at its newly completed salt water disposal (SWD) facility near Helena in Karnes County, TX. The facility is composed of new storage tanks and a fully contained offloading platform that features four unloading tractor trailer bays, a 150 hp pumping system and 2,400 bbl of onsite storage. The newly drilled SWD well was completed to the Middle Wilcox formation at a total depth of 7,800 feet. Green Hunter Water is a unit of GreenHunter Energy Inc. “We expect demand for Class II injection capacity in this part of the Eagle Ford Shale play to remain robust due to the increased drilling in the region directly related to the successful drilling efforts by operators in the ‘oil window’ of the Eagle Ford,” said Green Hunter Energy President Jonathan D. Hoopes. “With this new well now online and the facility operational, GreenHunter Water’s total owned disposal capacity has reached 35,000 bbl per day from a total of seven SWD wells located in five states.”

ExxonMobil Corp. has increased its hold in the Bakken Shale to nearly 600,000 net acres after agreeing to acquire Denbury Resources Inc.’s entire portfolio in the play, 196,000 net acres. The North Dakota and Montana properties had average production in the first six months of this year of about 15,400 boe/d, 88% weighted to oil and liquids.

TPC Group Inc. plans to produce on-purpose isobutylene with the refurbishment and restart of dehydrogenation assets at its Houston operations. The isobutylene feedstock will be used for the company’s performance products and fuels business, including methyl tertiary-butyl ether, polyisobutylene, high-purity isobutylene and diisobutylene. Start-up is planned for the second half of 2014. The facilities will produce up to 650 million pounds per year of isobutylene from isobutane, a natural gas liquids feedstock whose production volumes continue to increase as a result of U.S. shale gas development, TPC said. Total capital expenditure for the project is estimated at $265 million. TPC recently agreed to be taken private by First Reserve Corp. and SK Capital Partners in a cash-and-debt transaction valued at $850 million (see Shale Daily, Aug. 30).

Gulf Coast petrochemicals maker TPC Group Inc. on Monday agreed to be taken private by First Reserve Corp. and SK Capital Partners in a cash-and-debt transaction valued at $850 million.