Heads up, upstream players! Non-North American oil and gas companies are increasingly competing with U.S. independents for domestic oil and gas reserves-and winning. And more deals for U.S. assets by non-North American buyers are under way, various sources report. Buyers include Spain's Repsol, Norway's Statoil, Australia's BHP and several Japanese firms. "I think we're going to continue to see this trend," one asset-marketer says. The trend to date has been limited to Gulf of Mexico reserves and production. In the past two years, non-North American companies' winning interest has been only for these assets, both in shallow and deep water. They collected titles to some $11.5 billion worth of these acquisitions since January 2005, according to data from asset-marketer Scotia Waterous. None of the winning bidders for onshore U.S. upstream assets were non-North American during the timeframe, except for long-time U.S. upstream players Shell and BP. For more on this, see the May issue of Oil and Gas Investor. For a subscription, call 713-260-6441.