Shareholders

Ignoring protests from some shareholders who want a complete separation from Dynegy Inc., ChevronTexaco Corp. Tuesday offered its strongest public endorsement to date, writing down a total of $631 million in second-quarter earnings related to its stake in the marketer, and reiterating that all of its U.S. natural gas agreements remain in place and will remain in place for at least the near term. ChevronTexaco’s profits were down 78% compared to the second quarter a year ago, and part of the loss related to a $531 million special-item charge for the company’s investment in Dynegy’s common and preferred stock to its estimated fair value as of June 30, 2002, and $100 million related to its share of Dynegy’s own writedown.

Exxon Mobil Corp. and the Shell Group of companies had some good news and some bad news for their shareholders Thursday. The good news: they made a profit. The bad news: for each of them it was about 38-39% less than last year. Mitigating factor: last year’s 2Q set a record. The culprits: lower gas and oil prices and a drop in refinery returns.

Ignoring protests from some shareholders who want a complete separation from Dynegy Inc., ChevronTexaco Corp. Tuesday offered its strongest public endorsement to date, writing down a total of $631 million in second-quarter earnings related to its stake in the marketer, and reiterating that all of its U.S. natural gas agreements remain in place and will remain in place for at least the near term. ChevronTexaco’s profits were down 78% compared to the second quarter a year ago, and part of the loss related to a $531 million special-item charge for the company’s investment in Dynegy’s common and preferred stock to its estimated fair value as of June 30, 2002, and $100 million related to its share of Dynegy’s own writedown.

Seeking to pull itself out of the Enron quagmire, Arthur Andersen reportedly is attempting to negotiate a settlement with Enron shareholders, unsecured creditors and employees in Enron’s 401(k) retirement plan, according to a story this morning in the Wall Street Journal.

No news would be good news for Enron Corp., but that wasn’t the case again on Tuesday, as its stock fell to lows not seen in about a decade. Although in better times being named the most actively traded stock would be a bonus, Enron probably would have liked to have heard otherwise, and by the time the New York Stock Exchange had closed, more than 20 million shares had changed hands to close at $9.67.

Shareholders of Louis Dreyfus Natural Gas approved the company’s acquisition by Dominion. Trading of Louis Dreyfus stock will be suspended at the close of trading today and will subsequently be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. The transaction will be effective on Thursday. Dominion announced in September that it would acquire Louis Dreyfus for $2.3 billion in cash, stock and assumed debt. The deal grows Dominion’s gas reserves by 60% or 4.6 Bcfe. Its production will grow to more than 450 Bcf a year, a 40% hike.

Energy Search Inc. announced that it will hold a special meeting of its common and preferred shareholders on July 19 in Knoxville, TN, to vote on a proposal to approve the merger of Energy Search and EOG Resources Inc. and to approve the transactions proposed by the merger agreement. If the merger and related transactions are approved, shares of Energy Search common stock and preferred stock will be converted to the right to receive $8.22 in cash. Only those persons who owned common stock or preferred stock of Energy Search at the close of business on the first of June will be entitled to vote on the proposal. The board of directors of Energy Search said it unanimously recommends that stockholders vote for the merger proposal. Under the agreement first announced in late May (see Daily GPI, May 24), EOG Resources said total consideration for Energy Search would equal about $37.6 million. Energy Search is an independent oil and gas exploration and production company focused primarily on developmental drilling and production of natural gas reserves in the Appalachian Basin. Energy Search holds 75 Bcfe of reserves and produces about 7 MMcf/d of Appalachian natural gas. Its proven reserves increased 17.9% in 2000 compared to 1999.

Energy East Corp. announced on Friday that its shareholders “overwhelmingly approved” its proposed merger with RGS Energy Group. Energy East plans to buy the parent company of Rochester Gas & Electric for approximately $1.4 billion.

Barrett Resources Corp.’s move to provide “strategic alternatives” to its shareholders, and thus, increase the value if it is taken over, appears to have paid off. Last week, the Denver-based independent apparently received at least two more bids to compete with Royal Dutch/Shell Group’s offer of $60 a share. Barrett had set a deadline of last Wednesday for other companies to make an offer.