Partner

Norway’s StatoilHydro ASA gained a stake in the Marcellus Shale after agreeing to partner with Chesapeake Energy Corp. in a $3.38 billion transaction. About $1.25 billion will be paid for 32.5% of Chesapeake’s leasehold and $2.13 billion will be set aside to fund 75% of drilling and completion costs from 2009 to 2012.

Susan F. Clark was elected to the Sierra Pacific Resources board of directors, filling one of two vacancies. Clark is a partner in Tallahassee, FL-based law firm Radey Thomas Yon & Clark, which specializes in telecommunication law and energy regulation. During more than 20 years service with the Florida Public Service commission Clark was a commissioner for nine years and served as chairman in 1995-1996. She also served the regulatory commission as its general counsel.

Dejour Enterprises Ltd. and investment partner Brownstone Ventures have acquired 64,000 net acres of oil and gas leasehold in Colorado and Utah from privately held Retamco Operating Inc. The transaction gives the partners operational control of 128,000 acres in the Rocky Mountains. Dejour, an exploration and production company based in Vancouver, BC, would hold a 71% stake in the leasehold. Brownstone, a Canadian-based energy investment firm, would hold the remaining interest. Overall, the companies would have around 289,000 gross acres of leasehold properties in Colorado and Utah. The additional acreage was acquired in exchange for Dejour’s and Brownstone’s working interest in roughly 3,500 acres and two wells at North Barcus Creek and a cash payment. The North Barcus Creek wells were drilled on joint acreage held by Retamco at the end of 2007 and are awaiting production tie-in, Dejour stated. The transaction, said Dejour, completes its first step in a strategy to develop a “major operating presence” in several of the most promising producing basins in the Rockies. In the next two years the producer plans to drill and complete “at least” 10 exploration wells in the Piceance Basin. Based on its exploration results, it may move to full resource development.

There’s no room left in the pipe, according to the partner backers of the Midcontinent Express Pipeline LLC (MEP) project, who said last week their project is fully subscribed at its initial capacity of 1.4 Bcf/d.

There’s no room left in the pipe, according to the partner backers of the Midcontinent Express Pipeline LLC (MEP) project, who said Wednesday their project is fully subscribed at its initial capacity of 1.4 Bcf/d.

Leaving telltale signs that may be traced to renewable natural gas (RNG) from animal waste, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) and its alternative energy partner BioEnergy Solutions struck paydirt last week in a biogas-to-pipeline injection project in the agricultural fields of Fresno County in California. It is the first project in the state to deliver pipeline-quality RNG to a utility, according to PG&E.

Leaving telltale signs that can only be renewable natural gas (RNG) from animal waste, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and its alternative energy partner BioEnergy Solutions struck paydirt Tuesday in a biogas-to-pipeline injection project in the agricultural fields of Fresno County in California. It is the first project in the state to deliver pipeline-quality RNG to a utility, according to PG&E.

Regency Energy Partners LP, whose general partner is majority-owned by an affiliate of GE Energy Financial Services, has received antitrust clearance to buy FrontStreet Hugoton LLC and FrontStreet Energyone LLC from GE Financial Services for $139 million.

BP plc and partner BHP Billiton Ltd. last week began exporting oil and natural gas from their long-delayed Atlantis project in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GOM).