Texas

Two top Texas congressmen, both Republicans, have expressed their “deep concern” about the $18.5 billion bid for Unocal Corp. by the China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) in a letter to President Bush.

XTO Energy Inc. has completed its purchase of producing properties from Plains Exploration & Production Co. for $336 million, further expanding its operations in East Texas and northern Louisiana. XTO’s internal engineers estimate the proved reserves to be 175 Bcfe, of which 75% are proved developed and 95% are attributable to natural gas. Beginning Wednesday (June 1), the acquired properties will contribute production of about 35 MMcf/d, which is already reflected in the company’s guidance. XTO agreed to the purchase earlier this year. With the purchase, XTO now holds acreage in the Sabine Uplift and Cotton Valley trends, which include the Carthage, Rosewood, White Oak/Glenwood, Beckville, East Henderson and Oak Hill fields. The original $350 million purchase price was reduced by $32 million of net revenues from a Jan. 1 effective date, offset by $18 million in capital expenditures, for a net reduction of $14 million, XTO said.

Pacific Gas & Electric did not extend a systemwide Stage 2 high-inventory OFO beyond Wednesday.

West Texas Gas experienced a mechanical failure at its Davis Plant, Questar said Friday. The unavailability of the processing plant for most of Friday’s gas day left Questar unable to deliver to TransColorado at the Greasewood delivery point, so Questar cut Greasewood nominations to elapsed pro rata levels in Cycle 3 Friday. Questar said Davis repairs were expected to be completed and nominations back to normal by Saturday’s gas day. The incident occurred on the heels of Questar announcing a March 7-11 maintenance outage at Davis Plant that would also have the effect of suspending deliveries to TransColorado (see Daily GPI, Feb. 25).

Federal regulators last Wednesday granted Texas Eastern Transmission LP (Tetco) nearly three additional years to complete and place into operation the remaining facilities of its proposed looping and compression expansion of its mainline pipeline in the Southeast.

Federal regulators on Wednesday granted Texas Eastern Transmission LP (Tetco) nearly three additional years to complete and place into operation the remaining facilities of its proposed looping and compression expansion of its mainline pipeline in the Southeast.

Following its announcement to buy two Texas properties on Monday (see Daily GPI, Feb. 1), Moody’s Investors Service analysts affirmed the stable rating outlook of El Paso Corp.’s production holding unit, pending a review of the company’s 4Q2004 and year-end 2004 results.

Gulf South pushed up the start of this week’s maintenance on its Index 8 segment in East Texas, originally set for 7 a.m. CST (see Daily GPI, Jan. 6), to Monday at 7 a.m. The work is still expected to last about 48 hours.

Dynegy Inc. on Tuesday completed the sale of its Sherman, TX-based gas processing facility to Dornick Hills Midstream Ltd., which is based in Dallas. The transaction resulted in a pre-tax gain for Dynegy of $17 million.