• Yukos Oil Co., Moscow, has purchased the Harvest Natural Resources Inc., Houston, 34% interest in Geoilbent LLC for $69.5 million. Harvest will also receive $5.5 million as repayment of intercompany loans and payables owed to Harvest by Geoilbent. Harvest plans to use proceeds to acquire and develop properties elsewhere in Russia and in Venezuela and for general corporate purposes. • Newfield Exploration Co., Houston, has sold Newfield Exploration Australia Ltd., which owned all of the company's properties in Australia. The assets consisted of an interest in two oil-producing fields and two related floating production, storage and offloading vessels. Average net daily production in first-half 2003 was approximately 3,500 bbl. of oil a day. • ConocoPhillips, ENI Venezuela and Opic have purchased 75% of Inelectra's interest in the Gulf of Paria East, eastern Venezuela. ConocoPhillips will now lead the consortium. ConocoPhillips now has a 37.5% stake while ENI Venezuela has 30%. Inelectra holds 25% while Opic has the remaining 7.5%. • ChevronTexaco Corp., San Ramon, Calif., will sell its 65% share in the joint venture to develop the North Buzachi oil field in western Kazakhstan to China National Petroleum Corp. Once completed, the deal will leave CNPC the sole owner in the project, which aims to develop the field's 1 billion bbl. of oil reserves. • Perenco, London, has purchased U.K. Southern North Sea properties from BG Group, London, for $135 million. The assets include interests in the Inde and Leman joint facilities, onshore processing facilities at Bacton in north Norfolkin and 11 nonoperated fields: Indefatigable, and South West Inde, Bessemer, Bell, Baird, Beaufort, Brown, East Leman, Boyle, Davy and North Davy. Proved reserves are estimated at 25.2 million BOE, and production in 2002 was 93 million cu. ft. of gas per day. IN MEMORIAM Dale G. Rettinger, 59, executive vice president, treasurer and chief financial officer of Petroleum Development Corp., Bridgeport, W.Va., since 1980, passed away Oct. 3. James N. Ryan, chairman and chief executive officer, said, "Dale will be missed both personally and professionally."