Ventures

The smell of success emanating from North American shale gas plays has wafted overseas, drawing foreign investors to joint ventures (JV) with U.S. producers. Eventually some of those foreign investors will be acquiring U.S. energy companies, Deloitte LLP consultants said.

Joint ventures (JV) have given Chinese and Korean companies a toehold in U.S. shale gas plays while hardly raising an eyebrow among those who might oppose an outright corporate takeover of a U.S. energy company by such a foreign interest. However, it’s only a matter of time before such a deal happens, Deloitte LLP consultants said.

The pace of development at Encana Corp. was hampered in 2010 by low natural gas prices, but farm-ins, partnerships and joint ventures (JV) similar to the $5.4 billion transaction with an affiliate of PetroChina International Ltd. will help the company double its production growth over the next five years, CEO Randy Eresman said Thursday.

“Very weak gas prices” are in the offing as drilling to hold leases, cost-carry joint ventures and the disparity between oil and gas prices “are expected to push gas production so high that it causes some regional storage and pipeline constraints…” Bentek Energy LLC said in its latest Market Alert.

“Very weak gas prices” are in the offing as drilling to hold leases, cost-carry joint ventures and the disparity between oil and gas prices “are expected to push gas production so high that it causes some regional storage and pipeline constraints…” Bentek Energy LLC said in its latest Market Alert.

Major joint ventures (JV) in North American unconventional resource plays were a driving force in pushing worldwide merger and acquisition (M&A) activity to a record high in 2010, preliminary data indicate.

Shale gas basins are responsible for North America’s gas boom, but it’s producer joint ventures (JV) that are in part responsible for the seemingly relentless drilling in a low-price environment. JVs with drilling carries will help support drilling activity, supporting a rig count that will “only fall modestly in 2011,” Barclays Capital analysts said last week.

Shale gas basins are responsible for North America’s gas boom, but it’s producer joint ventures (JV) that are in part responsible for the seemingly relentless drilling in a low-price environment. JVs with drilling carries will help support drilling activity, supporting a rig count that will “only fall modestly in 2011,” Barclays Capital analysts said Tuesday.

Tenaska Marketing Ventures/Tenaska Marketing Canada/Tenaska Gas Storage (collectively TMV) has renewed a $1 billion committed credit facility for a four-year term maturing in July 2014. The facility, first established in 2006, will be used to finance TMV’s natural gas inventory transactions and as liquidity support for TMV’s operations. TMV is the natural gas marketing affiliate of Tenaska, which recently was ranked eighth in NGI’s North American natural gas quarterly trading survey (see Daily GPI, June 10). Tenaska regained control of TMV in January 2009 after completing a repurchase from affiliates of American International Group Inc., which at the time owned a half stake in the venture (see Daily GPI, Jan. 9, 2009). BNP Paribas and Societe Generale were co-lead arrangers of the credit facility renewal; the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd., Rabobank Nederland, Natixis and Credit Agricole CIB were co-documentation agents. A total of 20 lenders participated in the facility.