BreitBurn Energy Partners LP, Los Angeles, (Nasdaq: BBEP) reports Quicksilver Resources Inc., Fort Worth, Texas, (NYSE: KWK) has filed notices of nonsuit which dismiss all claims previously made in its lawsuit against BreitBurn directors Charles S. Weiss, Gregory Moroney, Halbert S. Washburn and Randall H. Breitenbach.

Quicksilver filed a lawsuit against BreitBurn Energy in October 2008 claiming its sale of Calgary-based Provident Energy Trust’s (NYSE: PVX) stake in BreitBurn was not part of Quicksilver’s previous deal with BreitBurn.

The claims against Weiss and Moroney were due to allegations by Quicksilver that BreitBurn had made untrue statements to Quicksilver concerning Provident at the time that BreitBurn and Quicksilver completed a transaction in 2007; BreitBurn had overpaid Provident and had likewise benefitted fellow directors Washburn and Breitenbach when BreitBurn purchased Provident’s interests in BreitBurn in 2008; and BreitBurn improperly adopted an amendment to its partnership agreement granting all limited partners the right to vote for directors for the first time.

Quicksilver has now dropped these claims against Moroney and Weiss.

The suit against directors Washburn and Breitenbach was due to allegations by Quicksilver that BreitBurn overpaid Provident or benefited Washburn and Breitenbach when BreitBurn purchased Provident’s interests in BreitBurn in 2008. Quicksilver claimed that at the time of the Provident sale, BreitBurn was “orchestrating a buyout” of interests held by Washburn and Breitenbach “at an above-market price.”

BreitBurn maintains that documentation of the transaction clearly shows no interests of Washburn or Breitenbach were “bought out” as part of the transaction and neither Washburn nor Breitenbach received any cash or other premium in the transaction.

Quicksilver has now dropped these claims against Washburn and Breitenbach as well.

Washburn and Breitenbach remain as defendants in the case only with regard to Quicksilver’s claim that BreitBurn made untrue statements to it with respect to the transaction between Quicksilver and BreitBurn when BreitBurn acquired properties from Quicksilver in 2007.

In addition, Quicksilver has dismissed all claims against Provident directors and former BreitBurn board members Randall J. Findlay, Thomas W. Buchanan and Grant D. Billing. The three Provident directors were not involved in the BreitBurn decision to make a bid for the Provident interest in BreitBurn.

Discovery in the case has further revealed that Quicksilver, in coordination with its hedge fund partner, GSO/Blackstone Group, also bid on the Provident interest in BreitBurn. They were one of four bidders for Provident’s BreitBurn interests alone, all of whom were within 10% of the price offered to Provident by the Partnership.

Rather than the partnership paying “above market” for Provident’s BreitBurn units, BreitBurn units sold in the market both before and after the buyout at levels above the price paid by the partnership.

Quicksilver continues to make claims in its lawsuit against BreitBurn Energy and two of its subsidiaries, as well as against Provident Energy Trust.

BreitBurn has interests in the Antrim shale in Michigan, the Los Angeles Basin in California, the Wind River and Big Horn basins in central Wyoming, the Sunniland trend in Florida, and the New Albany shale in Indiana and Kentucky.