Private

The Marcellus Shale is the “best gas play” in the United States and at current price levels, “the only basin where dry gas should be drilled,” analysts with Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. (TPH) advised in a new report.

In what it said was the first step to develop a new pipeline to move Marcellus Shale natural gas out of northeast Pennsylvania, Penn Virginia Resource Partners LP (PVR) has acquired an option to purchase an easement along a 28.8-mile long right-of-way corridor in Susquehanna County, PA.

As a further indication of the private equity sector’s growing interest in energy infrastructure, First Reserve Corp. and the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) have partnered to acquire natural gas-fired generation plants and transmission lines from ArcLight Capital Partners.

Mexico’s state-owned petroleum company, Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), announced Friday that it will accept bids for a new round of private exploration and production (E&P) contracts in early January.

MarkWest Energy Partners LP, which teamed up with private equity fund The Energy & Minerals Group (EMG) three years ago to create one of the largest natural gas processing companies in the Marcellus Shale, now sees a “critical” need to create similar midstream infrastructure in the emerging Utica Shale, CEO Frank Semple said last week.

MarkWest Energy Partners LP, which teamed up with private equity fund The Energy & Minerals Group (EMG) three years ago to create one of the largest natural gas processing companies in the Marcellus Shale, now sees a “critical” need to create similar midstream infrastructure in the emerging Utica Shale, CEO Frank Semple said late Monday.

Indigo II Louisiana Operating LLC said it has made a new oil discovery in central Louisiana with its first horizontal well targeting the Louisiana Eagle Ford Shale (LA Eagle Ford).

Nevada’s two major private-sector electric utilities, both operating under corporate parent NV Energy, will merge into one utility headquartered in Las Vegas. Sierra Pacific Power Co., a combination natural gas and electric utility in the north, will be consolidated into the larger electric-only Nevada Power Co. utility in the south, said NV Energy CEO Michael Yackira. Filings to the Nevada Public Utilities Commission and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission are to be made by the end of this year.

For the third consecutive year, Oregon state regulators on Monday lowered the retail charges in natural gas rates for two of the state’s three private-sector gas distribution utilities. The lower charges are effective Tuesday and will bring continued lower winter gas bills, although the rates for one utility stayed essentially flat.