Equity

Private equity heavyweights Sam Zell’s Equity Group Investments and Tom Barrack’s Colony Capital Inc. have formed a partnership to provide capital and asset management in the U.S. upstream oil and gas sector.

Newly launched Aspen Midstream LLC of Dallas is starting out with a $200 million initial commitment from EnCap Flatrock Midstream and company management. Aspen offers natural gas gathering, processing, compression and treating; condensate stabilization and vapor recovery; crude oil gathering and terminaling; and produced-water gathering and disposal to producers throughout North America. CEO James Clarke most recently was vice president of business development at Energy Transfer Partners LP. Aspen’s other founding executives are Chief Commercial Officer Stephen Reilly, COO Robert Underwood and Matt Ray, vice president of business development. Reilly previously served as senior director of business development at Energy Transfer, where he worked alongside Underwood, who was director of engineering; and Ray, who was director of business development.

Dallas-based midstream services provider Lucid Energy Group has secured an equity commitment for up to $250 million from Magnetar Capital to support Lucid’s proposed natural gas gathering and processing system in the Delaware Basin, a sub-basin of the Permian. “This important transaction, combined with the existing support of EnCap Flatrock Midstream, allows us to continue to aggressively expand our Delaware Basin franchise and offer large-scale, best-in-class service to producers in the region,” said Lucid CEO Mike Latchem. Lucid provides midstream services to producers in the Permian’s Midland and Delaware basins and is the largest privately held natural gas processor in the Permian with more than 930 MMcf of capacity in operation or under construction, and more than 3,600 miles of operational pipeline assets. Lucid in September 2016 acquired Agave Energy Co., the owner and operator of gas gathering and processing assets in the Delaware.

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal developer NextDecade LLC has named GE Oil & Gas exclusive supplier of gas turbine and compressor equipment for the liquefaction trains of its Rio Grande LNG project and associated Rio Bravo Pipeline in Texas. GE Oil & Gas also is providing NextDecade with a common equity investment and has been granted the right to invest up to a specified amount in project-level equity and debt financing for Rio Grande LNG at the time of final investment decision.

As capital comes to the forefront and public offerings gain steam, the U.S. energy sector this year should see sustained growth from equity and bond offerings, according to PLS Inc.

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).

Nearly seven months after voluntarily filing for bankruptcy protection, Ultra Petroleum Corp. said it has reached agreements to reorganize with majorities of its shareholders and creditors.

An Oklahoma-focused oil and natural gas producer has changed its name and beefed up its expansion plans after securing a cash infusion from private equity TPH Partners.

Encana Corp. late Monday launched a bid that would enable it to double its Permian Basin well count in 2017 with an equity offer to raise more than $1 billion.