Energy-company stocks capture investor attention despite year-end portfolio distractions.

Energy-company IPOs have dominated the new-stock scene this month, launching seven of the 13 new U.S.-exchange listings through Dec. 15. The six others capturing investor interest as 2011 wanes and many portfolios are being righted for tax purposes are a social-gaming-service, fashion house Michael Kors Holdings Ltd., a REIT, a social-business software firm and two healthcare-industry operators.

Among the energy IPO pricings this month, onshore-U.S.-focused E&Ps and pipeline operators whet stock-buyers’ appetites.

--Inergy Midstream LP (NYSE: NRGM) priced 16 million units at $17 each. The new natural gas storage and transportation company is a product of John Sherman’s propane-distribution-focused Inergy LP, based in Kansas City, Missouri.

--Randy Foutch’s Laredo Petroleum Holdings Inc. (NYSE: LPI) sold 17.5 million shares at $17 each. Tulsa-based Laredo focuses on oil and gas E&P in the Permian Basin and Midcontinent.

--Michael Starzer’s Bonanza Creek Energy Inc. (NYSE: BCEI) sold 10 million shares at $17 each. Denver-based Bonanza owns oil-producing assets in the San Joaquin Basin of California.

--Randy Olmstead’s Mid-Con Energy Partners LP (Nasdaq: MCEP) sold 5.4 million units at $18 each. Tulsa-based Mid-Con focuses on oil and gas E&P in the Midcontinent.

--Antonio Sanchez III’s Sanchez Energy Corp. (NYSE: SN) sold 10 million shares at $22 each. Houston-based Sanchez has leasehold over Eagle Ford shale in South Texas, over Haynesville in northwestern Louisiana and in Lewis and Clark, Meagher, and Cascade counties, Montana.

--John Weinzierl’s Memorial Production Partners LP (Nasdaq: MEMP) sold 9 million units at $19 each. Houston-based Memorial operates oil and gas properties in South Texas and East Texas.

--Norman Szydlowski’s Rose Rock Midstream LP (NYSE: RRMS) sold 7 million units at $20 each. Tulsa-based Rose Rock owns oil gathering, transportation, storage and marketing assets in Colorado, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Texas.

These IPOs follow several November energy-stock pricings.

--Jonny Brumley’s Enduro Royalty Trust (NYSE: NDRO) sold 13.2 million units at $22 each. Austin, Texas-based Enduro buys net-profits interests in Brumley’s Enduro Resource Partners LLC properties in Texas, Louisiana and New Mexico.

-- Eric Mullins and Charles Adcock’s LRR Energy LP (NYSE: LRE) sold 9.4 million units at $19 each. Houston-based LRR has 30 million BOE of proved reserves in the Permian Basin, Midcontinent and Gulf Coast.

--Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s Chesapeake Granite Wash Trust (NYSE: CHKR) sold 20 million units at $19 each. It holds interests in production from a portion of Chesapeake’s Granite Wash-play leasehold in the Anadarko Basin.

--Christian Beckett’s Pacific Drilling SA (NYSE: PACD) sold 6 million shares at $8.25 each. Houston-based Pacific operates ultra-deepwater drillships.

Prior to pricings this week, Gabriele Sorbara, vice president, E&P research, for Caris & Co., forecast, “We believe these transactions will be well received by the market, given their exposure to oily plays, including the Permian Basin, the Eagle Ford shale and Niobrara, to name a few.”

Foutch’s Laredo Petroleum Holdings is particularly eye-catching, “given its exposure to the horizontal Wolfcamp/Cline shales in the Midland Basin. While Laredo’s IPO pricing and valuation should be positive for the Permian players—especially the horizontal Wolfcamp players—we believe this week's…flurry of IPO activity would bring excitement to the entire E&P sector into year-end.”

–Nissa Darbonne, Editor-at-Large, Oil and Gas Investor, OilandGasInvestor.com, Oil and Gas Investor This Week, A&D Watch, A-Dcenter.com, UGcenter.com. Contact Nissa at ndarbonne@hartenergy.com.