?• Toreador Resources Corp., Dallas, (Nasdaq: TRGL) has retained Merrill Lynch & Co. to explore strategic alternatives for the company.


Toreador president and chief executive Nigel Lovett says, “We are taking these steps to enhance shareholder value. Although we believe we have many exciting exploration prospects to evaluate over the next several years, we believe it only prudent to retain Merrill Lynch to assist us in developing a strategy that is in all respects in the best interests of shareholders.”


Toreador has interest in offshore and onshore oil and gas properties on approximately 5.9 million gross acres (4.8 million net), including 10 permits in Turkey, two blocks in Hungary, three permits in Romania and nine permits in France. As of December 31, net proved reserves were 13.3 million BOE.

• Venoco Inc., Denver, (NYSE: VQ) has withdrawn its S-1 to form an upstream MLP.


Venoco Acquisition Co. LP, Denver, had filed an S-1 in February to IPO up to 10.56 million units, for approximately $19.82 each for a total raise of $209 million on the New York Stock Exchange as VAC. Lehman Brothers, Citi and UBS Investment Bank were the chosen underwriters.


Venoco chairman and chief executive Timothy Marquez says, “Combined with rising commodity prices and changing capital-market conditions there is little incentive to pursue the MLP. The draft EIR related to our South Ellwood Field in California was recently released and we are nearing Denbury Resources’ first exercise date in our joint-venture CO2 flood in our Hastings Field in Texas.


“We don’t want a complicated ownership structure to diminish the economics of these significant projects.”


Venoco Acquisition would have had a 38.5% average working interest in 325 gross producing wells in the South Ellwood, Dos Cuadras, West Montalvo, Beverly Hills West and Santa Clara Avenue fields in Southern California and the Hastings Complex in Brazoria County, Texas. Proved reserves as of Dec. 31, 2006, were 21.2 million BOE (86.2% oil, 81.1% proved developed). The assets also included five associated oil or gas pipeline systems.?

• PetroHunter Energy Corp., Denver, (OTCBB: PHUN) has filed an S-1 to offer approximately 102 million shares for selling shareholders at $0.20 to $1.00 each for a total raise of $50.9 million.


PetroHunter will offer 34.3 million shares at $1 each for $34.4 million, 48.2 million shares at up to $0.28 each for $12.6 million, 19.3 million shares at $0.20 each for $3.9 million. PetroHunter will not receive any proceeds from the offering.


PetroHunter has 20,000 net acres in the Buckskin Mesa project in Rio Blanco County, Colorado; the Piceance II project consisting of 27 producing nonoperated wells and 16 nonproducing operated wells; the South Bronco project; and the Gibson Gulch project, Colorado. The company also holds various interests in Australia, including the Beetaloo project comprising 7 million net contiguous acres; and the Northwest Shelf project consisting of an exploration permit with 20,000 acres in Western Australia.


As of Sept. 30, proved developed reserves were approximately 8,873 bbl of oil and 13.7 billion cu. ft. of gas.

• David Marcell and Dane Isenhower have formed asset-marketing firm Aim Energy Advisors LLC based in Houston. Marcell was previously a managing director with energy investment banker Tristone Capital. Prior to Tristone, Marcell worked for investment bankers?Friedman Billings Ramsey and CIBC, and was with Union Pacific Resources for 18 years in business development. Isenhower was also a managing director with Tristone Capital, and previously was with energy investment bankers?Scotia Waterous and JP Morgan Chase, and was with Getty Oil Co. Also joining the new firm is Debbie Wilson, formerly in administration for Tristone.

• Greenwich, Conn.-based institutional broker Weeden & Co. LP has hired Geoff Kieburtz as an energy analyst. Kieburtz has experience following oilfield service and equipment stocks for Citi Investment Research. He was also a field engineer, location manager and in various other positions of the wireline division of Schlumberger and senior manager of consulting firm Marakon Associates.


He joins recently hired E&P analyst Ellen K. Hannan, who joined the firm from Bear Stearns & Co. in New York, and previously was an analyst for Prudential Securities and Bessemer Trust. She was also with Texaco Inc.

• New Orleans-based Taylor Energy Co. is now known as?Ankor Energy LLC. The nearly 30-year-old, privately held Taylor was purchased in March by U.S. subsidiaries of Korea National Oil Corp. (KNoc) and Samsung Corp., both based in South Korea, for more than $1 billion. Taylor was producing some 14,000 net BOE per day from the Gulf of Mexico at the time of the sale. The company was founded by the late Patrick F. Taylor, and had been run since his passing by his wife, Phyllis Taylor.

• Privately held, Dallas-based Kosmos Energy LLC has received an additional $500 million of equity funding led by Warburg Pincus and Blackstone Capital Partners, an affiliate of The Blackstone Group, to fund ongoing E&P activities in West Africa, including first-phase development of Jubilee Field offshore Ghana.


Warburg Pincus and Blackstone, as well as the Kosmos management team, previously committed $300 million to the company.


Kosmos chairman and chief executive James C. Musselman says, “We are grateful to Warburg Pincus and Blackstone, our funding partners, for their steadfast support. They are providing us with the financial means to aggressively pursue our organic growth strategy and build an exploration and production company of scale in West Africa. We believe that their strategic and financial backing, together with Kosmos’ strong technical abilities and operational expertise, positions us well for continued success.”


The company is continuing its evaluation of its recent Odum discovery and will explore for additional potential in Ghana. Kosmos has four rigs under contract, including: the Eirik Raude, a semisubmersible, under a three-year minimum commitment to the Jubilee Field unit operator; the Blackford Dolphin and Aban Abraham drillships under contract to drill offshore Ghana; and the Songa Saturn drillship, which is completing its last well on Kosmos’ Ghanaian acreage, the Mahogany-2 appraisal well to validate the size and scope of Jubilee Field, its new discovery.


Kosmos has acreage positions in Morocco, Cameroon, Nigeria and Benin and licenses offshore Ghana. It recently tested its Mahogany-2 well at a flow rate of 5,200 bbl. of oil and approximately 5.5 million cu. ft. per day of associated gas on a 40/64-inch choke with a flowing tubing pressure of 1,543 psi.

• Cambridge, Mass.-based Intervale Capital LLC has closed its debut buyout fund, Intervale Capital Fund LP, with capital commitments of more than $280 million, exceeding its target of $200 million.


Intervale plans to deploy more than $500 million of purchasing power to acquire energy-service companies. Intervale’s first fund focused exclusively on oilfield-services buyouts, and its targeted service-company platforms that either own or can acquire technologies, which reduce drilling costs, or enable drilling.


The fund expects to acquire control positions in six to eight platform companies in North America and Western Europe. The fund’s typical investment holding period is four to six years.
Intervale has already completed two investments in the fund.


Intervale managing partner Charles Cherington says, “Both transactions involve companies deploying technology through a well-established platform company to grow more rapidly than the underlying market. In both deals, management owns a significant stake, and works closely with Intervale to manage strategy and long-term growth.”


Fund investors include institutional investors consisting of university endowments, foundations, pension funds and international investors. The fund is led by two managing partners: Curtis Huff in the firm’s Houston office and Cherington in the Boston office. Huff and Cherington have led more than 100 transactions in their careers, including 10 which they have executed together since 2006.


Cherington says, “Intervale’s first fund will build on Curtis’ and my oilfield investment experience. I am delighted to be partnering with Curtis who has a 26-year track record of being ahead of the pack when it comes to investing and developing outstanding oilfield service companies.”


Greenwich, Conn.-based Champlain Advisors LLC was placement agent in raising the fund.

• New York-based investment bank BNP Paribas has named Anthony Saracco vice president of its energy and natural resources team within its Americas corporate-finance practice. He was vice president in the multi-industries group for Merrill Lynch and has experience with Goldman Sachs and Drueker & Co.

• MacroMarkets LLC, Madison, N.J., reports MacroShares Oil Up (Amex: UCR) made $40; MacroShares Oil Down (Amex: DCR) shareholders made zero. They were launched Nov. 30, 2006, and had a termination trigger, which was hit as oil approached record highs. All proceeds were to be paid by July 3.


The next MacroShares Oil products, MacroShares $100 Oil Up (Amex: UOY) and Down (Amex: DOY) were to begin trading July 1 and will be based on $100 for Nymex oil futures contract, and cover prices between $0 and $200, with a termination trigger occurring when the Nymex oil price closes at or above $185 for three consecutive business days.


MacroMarkets chief executive Sam Masucci says MacroShares $100 Oil is to hold the assets in short-term Treasuries, overnight repurchase agreements or cash, but does not purchase oil futures. Additionally, it pays investors a quarterly distribution when the trusts’ income exceeds expenses. UOY and DOY are to be five-year securities.


“Our first oil product gathered more than $1.5 billion in assets, filling institutional and retail investor needs for accessing the oil market,” Masucci says. “We anticipate that UOY and DOY will continue to fulfill this need and we have made enhancements to the products in response to investor requests.”

• Houston American Energy Corp., Houston, (Nasdaq: HUSA) has been added to Russell Investment’s Russell 3000 Index. The Russell indices are an equity index family for institutional investors with more than $4.4 trillion in investment assets benchmarked to them. “We are pleased with our inclusion to this index, which reflects our continued positive momentum. Russell is an industry leader for stock indexes, and we expect our inclusion will generate greater interest in our stock among institutional investors,” says Houston American chief executive John F. Terwilliger. The company has property in Texas, Louisiana and Colombia.

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