• Escondido Resources LP, Houston, has been formed by William E. Deupree, Mark Semmelbeck, Kurt von Plonksi and J. David Wrather with private-equity funding from EnCap Investments Fund V. The company intends to acquire and drill in South Texas, where it has already done a $45-million deal involving 7.1 million cu. ft. equivalent per day of net production from 35 wells. Wells Fargo Bank NA provided banking and credit for the transaction. The Escondido partners can be reached at 28159-6780. • Slate River Resources LLC, Denver, has been formed with an equity commitment of $30 million during the next three years from Westport, Conn.-based Lime Rock Partners. Carter Mathies, Gary Davis, John Conley, Bruce Johnston and Gary Forrest are managing the company, which will focus on unconventional gas resources in the Rocky Mountain region, initially development projects in the Uinta and Piceance basins in eastern Utah and western Colorado. This is Lime Rock's fourth investment in the past two years in Rockies-focused energy companies, and "we continue to believe that the region presents some of the best opportunities in the energy industry today," says Jonathan Farber, Lime Rock managing director. • Colin F. Raymond has joined Natural Gas Partners, Irving, Texas, as a principal. Raymond was a vice president of Hunt Oil Co. • Michael Humphries has joined Ferris, Baker Watts Inc. as senior vice president, corporate finance, in the firm's Washington, D.C., office. Humphries was consulting to Ferris, Baker Watts and Bovaro Partners. • Thomas Plagemann and Russell Sherrill have joined AIG Financial Products Corp. as managing directors in its energy team. Sherrill has been an investment banker for the past 15 years. Plagemann began with the project-finance group at Deutsche Bank Securities and more recently was an originator with the GE Global Energy Group.

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