Companies in the news

 Anadarko Petroleum Corp. entered into an agreement to acquire Houston-based Howell Corp. in a cash merger in which Howell's common stockholders are to receive $20.75 per share and holders of Howell's $3.50 convertible preferred stock are to receive $76.15 per share. The value of the acquisition is about $265 million, including Howell's bank debt, which is anticipated to be about $65 million at closing of the acquisition. 

 Shiningbank Energy Income Fund entered into agreement to acquire additional long-life gas reserves in three areas complementary to existing operations 0150 – Whitecourt, McLeod and Caroline. The total cost of the three properties is $21.3 million. 

 Unocal Keystone’s Gas Storage’s project near Kermit, Texas is now operating the first two caverns, giving the facility 2 Bcf of high deliverability salt cavern gas storage capacity with the capacity to inject 100 MMcfgd and withdraw 200 MMcfgd. It is connected by pipeline with natural gas systems operated by El Paso Natural Gas Co. And Northern Natural Gas.

 Benton Oil & Gas changed its name to Harvest Natural Resources, Inc. 

 Noble Denton Americas expanded its presence in Rio de Janeiro to provide design engineering and consulting services in addition to its marine operations and survey services in Brazil.

 Mart Resources, Inc., agreed to participate in the development of existing undeveloped oil and gas fields in Nigeria that are currently being offered to Nigerian companies through the government’s Marginal Field Allocations Program. Under the agreement, Mart can evaluate a number of specific fields and, if they are awarded to them, may enter into a participation agreement with indigenous companies for the development.

 Ivanhoe Energy subsidiaries Sunwing Energy and Pan-China signed a 30-year production-sharing contract with PetroChina covering about 900,000 acres with a gross natural gas resource potential of 5 Tcfg in the western portion of the Sichuan basin. Ivanhoe will develop gas deposits on the Zitong Block. Ivanhoe will receive about 80% of the revenue until costs are recovered and then 45%.

 Aberdeen-based John Lawrie Group invested $8.5 million in its American Oiltube Inc. This investment will expand the range of tubular goods and services offered to its U.S. clients.

 Denbury Resources completed its acquisition of Coho Energy Inc.’s Gulf Coast properties. Purchase price was about $49 million.

 Well Control School, a subsidiary of RPC, Inc., announced that their System 21 Well Control training program will be awarded full accreditation from the International Association of Drilling Contractors’ WellCAP committee. The provisional accreditation will remain in effect until December to give WCS time to make requested changes, at which time full accreditation will go into effect.

 SEA Systems Ltd. signed an exclusive agreement to become the principal provider of electrical, control and instrumentation services to MODEC International LLC.

 Kerr-McGee North Sea Ltd. sold its Hutton TLP to Monitor TLP Ltd. for $29 million. It was removed from Hutton field as part of the decommissioning program approved the UK’s Department of Trade and Industry in May 2002. The firm also sold its 14.49% interest in Ross field to Paledin Expro Ltd. for $22 million. 

 Devon Energy Corp. and Chevron-Texaco formed a joint venture (JV) for a deepwater exploration program in the Gulf of Mexico. Devon will participate in a four-well drilling program on a promoted basis. In exchange, Devon will earn a 25% working interest in 71 ChevronTexaco deepwater blocks. To date, 14 exploratory prospects have been identified on the JV acreage.

 ExxonMobil’s subsidiary, Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited, started development of the Yoho project, offshore Nigeria. The $1.2 billion project, located in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. MPN JV acreage has estimated recoverable reserves of 0.4 billion bbl of oil. Yoho will develop discoveries in the Yoho and Awawa reservoirs in shallow water depths of 200-300 ft. The Yoho project will utilize an FPSO to produce first oil this year, almost two years ahead of full-field start-up. 

 Sorbent Products Co. announced a 30% manufacturing capacity increase, its third in five years due to product line expansions.

 Kvaerner Oilfield Products will open a new plant for manufacturing its steel tube umbilicals in Middle Bay Port facility, outside Mobile, Alabama. To date, GOM projects have been served from its facilities in Moss, Norway. This will improve competitiveness by reduced load out and transportation costs for GOM developments.

 Energy Scitech Ltd. opened a new office in Houston and formed Energy Scitech Inc. a wholly owned business unit, to support users of its oil and gas production projects and provide reservoir engineering consulting services throughout the Americas.

 XTO Energy Inc. completed its $164 million property transactions with the acquisition of $42 million (net of purchase price adjustments) of producing properties in the San Juan basin of New Mexico from Marathon Oil Co.

 BP sold two of its shareholdings in the ethylene pipeline company, Aethylen Rohrleitungs Gesellschaft mbH & Co. KG (ARG). The shareholdings have been sold in separate transactions to BASF Ak-tiengesellschaft and Sasol Germany GmbH.

 Grant Prideco, Inc. acquired Grey-Mak Pipe, Inc., from Flint Energy Services Ltd. Casper, Wyoming-based Gray-Mak specializes in threading of casing and tubing and furnishes related accessories.