• Shell Oil Co., Houston, has bid $55 per share for Barrett Resources Corp., Denver, cash. (See "Elephants on the Hunt," in this issue.) • Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc., Houston, has elected Bill Richardson, former secretary of the Department of Energy, to its board. Richardson was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and eight-term congressman, representing New Mexico's third district. • Privately held Ascent Energy Inc. plans to acquire Pontotoc Production Inc., Ada, Okla., for $11.50 per share, consisting of $9 in cash and Ascent convertible preferred stock having a liquidation value of $2.50 each. Ascent is a newly formed company whose principal shareholders are Los Angeles-based money-management and investment-banking firms. Ascent Energy will be based in Dallas with two core operating areas in south Louisiana and south-central Oklahoma. Separately, Pontotoc plans to acquire the remaining 55% interest in Pontotoc Holdings Inc. for 110,000 common shares, prior to the Ascent deal closing. • Pure Resources Inc., Midland, Texas, has acquired properties and fee mineral and royalty interests, as well as certain general and limited partnership interests, from International Paper Co. for approximately $261 million. Included in the deal are total proved reserves of 152 billion cu. ft. equivalent, 69% gas, 6 million gross fee mineral acres and approximately 400,000 leasehold acres along with participation in several offshore exploration programs. Pure funded the acquisition with cash and bank credit. The reserves are in the Permian Basin (46%), offshore Gulf of Mexico (22%) and along the Gulf Coast (15%). Pure expects to operate 70% of the net production acquired. The fee mineral and royalty interests are principally in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Proved royalty reserves total 24.9 billion cu. ft. equivalent, 50% gas. Credit Suisse First Boston was financial advisor to Pure. • Contango Oil & Gas Co., Houston, has canceled its plans to acquire up to a 50% equity interest in Houston-based Tri-Union Development Corp., for $5 million in cash and 1.5 million Contango common shares. Tri-Union operates in California, Texas, Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico. • Delta Petroleum Corp., Denver, has purchased a producing gas property in Eddy County, N.M., from Saga Petroleum Corp. for $2.1 million in cash and 181,269 restricted common shares. Also, Delta purchased a 50% working interest and operations under approximately 52,000 acres of leasehold in Harding and Butte counties, S.D. The company plans to drill the initial test wells this month to evaluate the project's shallow-gas potential. • Geo Petroleum, Los Angeles, plans to acquire a 50% interest in two horizontal wells and a 50,000-acre lease block in Kentucky. New Albany and two other zones are present throughout the lease block, suggesting large volumes of gas. • A Texas-based producer plans to acquire a portion of Hilton Petroleum Ltd., Bakersfield, Calif., properties known as the Enserch properties, primarily in Texas and Oklahoma, for $22.5 million. Proceeds will pay Hilton's credit-facility debt to Bank One. A $5-million balance will fund exploration in California. • Nutek Inc., Huntington Beach, Calif., has purchased a 90-acre gas lease in Texas that is expected to yield 1 million cu. ft. of gas per day. • Saxet Energy Ltd., Houston, has purchased a 50% working interest in the 100,250-acre Comanche Ranch prospect in Maverick County, Texas, from The Exploration Co., San Antonio. TXCO sold 50% of its rights below the base of the San Miguel formation to Saxet. Other terms were not disclosed. Saxet will be the operator. • Sharpe Resources Corp., Houston, subsidiary Sharpe Energy Co. plans to sell a 52.5% interest in its 100% owned offshore Gulf of Mexico Matagorda Island gas project for $10 million. The deal requires that the partner drill two wells to earn its interest in the entire project. • The Edelman Group, New York, has purchased 801,800 shares, or 6.34%, of Equity Oil Co., Salt Lake City, common stock. Equity has E&P operations in the Rockies and California. • U.S. Energy Corp., Riverton, Wyo., and Crested Corp. subsidiary Rocky Mountain Gas Inc. plan to acquire approximately 1,500 gross acres of coalbed-methane leases in the Wyoming portion of the Powder River Basin. The property has received drilling permits for 22 coalbed-methane wells. • Prize Energy Corp., Dallas, has acquired interests in properties from Apache Corp. for $65 million. Prize financed the acquisition under an existing credit facility. The properties are primarily in the Permian Basin of west Texas, the onshore Gulf Coast region of south Texas and Louisiana, and the Midcontinent region of western Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle. Proved producing reserves are approximately 9 million bbl. of oil and 22.8 billion cu. ft. of gas or 12.8 million BOE. • Aurado Exploration Ltd., Toronto, plans to purchase First Calgary Petroleums Ltd. 's U.S. subsidiary, FCP Petroleum Inc., for US$400,000 and 1.5 million Aurado shares. FCP holds a 6.67% working interest in the Fort Stockton prospect in Pecos County, Texas, that includes its 5.33% working interest in the Winfield Ranch 17 1E well. • Aspen Group Resources Corp., Oklahoma City, has acquired working interests of up to 45% in 36 wells in 16 different counties in the Anadarko Basin of western Oklahoma from a private seller for $665,000 in cash and stock. The acquisition also includes leasehold interests in development drilling locations and behind-pipe recompletion opportunities, which will be added to the Aspen Group inventory. Company engineers estimate the deal adds approximately 1.4 billion cu. ft. of gas and 73,200 bbl. of oil to Aspen's proved reserves, net. • Bellwether Exploration Co., Houston, has sold approximately 4 million BOE of noncore properties for $27 million. Proceeds will reduce debt. The sale involves approximately 450 wells, and reduces production 2,293 net BOE per day. • BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. will join Anadarko Petroleum Corp. , Houston, and Alberta Energy Co. Ltd. in a gas exploration joint venture on more than 3 million acres in the foothills region of Alaska's North Slope. BP acquired a third-interest in Anadarko's agreement with Arctic Slope Regional Corp. covering approximately 3.1 million acres. Anadarko received from BP a material interest in a satellite prospect near Prudhoe Bay and an interest in selected seismic surveys conducted by BP on the North Slope. The purchase amount was not disclosed. • Cabot Oil & Gas has acquired, with future capital requirements, from Burlington Resources, a 50% working interest in 250,000 acres in the Paradox Basin. Cabot plans to spud its first well in the third quarter. • Equity Oil, Salt Lake City, has acquired a 100% operated working interest in several producing oil wells in Utah for $610,000. The wells are adjacent to the Ashley Valley Field, where the company drilled the first commercial oil well in Utah in 1948, and is still actively producing oil. The wells have remaining recoverable reserves of an estimated 250,000 bbl. Estimated net 2001 production from the wells is 16,500 bbl.