Holdings

Expanding its presence in the Bakken Shale region, Global Partners LP has agreed to acquire a 60% membership interest in Basin Transload LLC, which operates two transloading facilities in North Dakota with a combined rail loading capacity of 160,000 b/d.

EPL Oil & Gas, Inc. said Monday it will pay $550 million to a unit of Hilcorp Energy Co. for a package of shallow water Gulf of Mexico (GOM) shelf oil and natural gas interests.

Investment funds affiliated with Riverstone Holdings LLC, and Kaiser Midstream, a midstream services company owned by Tulsa, OK, billionaire George B. Kaiser, are partnering with Sage Midstream LLC to form a new company with up to $500 million of equity commitments.

Dallas-based Mesa Energy Holdings Inc. has leased 1,525 net acres in Garfield and Major counties, OK, and has closed on a farmout agreement with Twenty/Twenty Oil & Gas Inc. covering 1,720 net acres that are held by production.

Continental Resources Inc.’s shareholders have approved the company’s purchase of Wheatland Oil Inc.’s core assets in the Bakken Shale, a stock deal valued at about $276 million.

Private equity power broker Riverstone Holdings LLC announced Monday that it has made an investment in Three Rivers Operating Co. LLC, which in turn has signed an agreement to buy several assets in the Permian Basin of West Texas from Meritage Energy Company LLC.

Meritage Midstream Services LLC and private equity power broker Riverstone Holdings LLC on Wednesday said they were teaming up once again, with Riverstone providing $500 million to pursue new natural gas liquids (NGL) midstream opportunities in some of North America’s emerging resource plays.

The U.S. oil and natural gas rig count will fall through 2013, with a “glaring change” to the forecast for wet gas drilling, according to Raymond James & Associates Inc. A “meaningful rebound” won’t occur until the second half of 2014 and through 2015, analysts said Monday.

U.S. Silica Holdings Inc. and BNSF Railway Co. are partnering to meet the needs of Eagle Ford Shale producers for sand to be used as proppant in their hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations.