• Chesapeake Energy Corp., Oklahoma City, made three acquisitions for $249 million, increasing its proved reserves by 240 billion cu. ft. of gas equivalent and production by 45 million cu. ft. of gas equivalent per day. The deals are a $42-million acquisition of producing Midcontinent gas properties from an unidentified producer, a $76-million acquisition of producing Midcontinent gas properties from Ram Energy Inc. and a $131-million acquisition of Sapient Energy Corp., Tulsa, Okla. Meanwhile, Chesapeake terminated its letter of intent to acquire all of Ram Energy's common stock. • Toreador Resources Corp., Dallas, has merged with Madison Oil Co., Dallas. (For more on this deal, see "Triton II" in this issue.) The combined company has proved reserves of 12.6 million bbl. of oil and 14.6 billion cu. ft. of gas, or 15.28 million BOE, 83.8% oil. Combined daily production during the first nine months of 2001 was 4.533 billion cu. ft. of gas and 2,695 bbl. of oil. • Contango Oil & Gas Co., Houston, has acquired 6.1 billion cu. ft. of gas equivalent of producing reserves in south Texas for $11 million. • Energy Partners Ltd., New Orleans, plans to acquire Hall-Houston Oil Co. and certain affiliated interests for approximately $88.3 million. The assets are in the central Gulf of Mexico and include proved reserves, as of Nov. 1, of 59.9 billion cu. ft. of gas equivalent with probable and possible reserves totaling an additional 24.6 billion cu. ft. of gas equivalent. Estimated current production is approximately 17 million cu. ft. of gas equivalent per day. Approximately 97% of the reserves and production are gas. -Crystal Cleveland-Kappes