M&A

With its sights set on being a leading global energy market data analytics provider, Jersey City, NJ-based Verisk Analytics Inc. announced Tuesday it has agreed to acquire Wood Mackenzie from Hellman & Friedman and other Wood Mackenzie shareholders for about $2.8 billion in cash.

Five days after announcing it was scuttling a proposed merger, Houston-based Dune Energy Inc. voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and plans to request approval of $10 million in debtor-in-possession financing from its pre-bankruptcy lenders.

Spain’s Iberdrola SA plans to acquire UIL Holdings Corp. in a cash and stock deal valued at about $3 billion, creating one of the larger utility companies in the United States and supplying natural gas customers in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

As the oil and natural gas industry sheds workers in the headwinds of low commodities prices, the CEO of Targa Resources Partners LP (NGLS) said his company could be on the verge of doing the opposite once it completes its acquisition of two midstream units of Atlas Energy LP later this month.

Talisman Energy Inc. reported a loss of nearly $1.4 billion during the fourth quarter of 2014, after writing down the value of its assets in the Eagle Ford Shale and elsewhere in the wake of the decline in crude oil prices.

Merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in the U.S. oil and gas industry hit a decade high in 2014, with investors still clamoring for U.S. assets, but a marked shift was evident in November as commodity prices declined.

NiSource Inc. said this week that it would offer 40 million common units at $19-21 each for Columbia Pipeline Partners LP, a master limited partnership (MLP) it announced in September to help raise cash for its natural gas transmission, midstream and storage assets.

Energy Transfer Partners LP (ETP) and affiliate Regency Energy Partners LP on Monday agreed to merge in a transaction estimated to be worth $18 billion, creating one of the largest master limited partnerships (MLP) with operations in nearly all major producing areas of the United States.

Dominion Resources Inc. is buying Carolina Gas Transmission (CGT) from SCANA Corp. for $492.9 million. CGT owns and operates nearly 1,500 miles of federally regulated interstate natural gas pipeline in South Carolina and southeastern Georgia.