Staking a claim: Shell Midstream Partners has acquired stakes in three companies that operate Gulf of Mexico oil and gas pipelines. As FuelFix.com reports, the Houston-based company’s board of directors has approved buying 10% interests in Proteus Oil Pipeline Co. and Endymion Oil Pipeline Co., and a 1% interest in Cleopatra Gas Gathering Co. CEO John Hollowell says in a statement the new interests help position Shell Midstream Partners to benefit from new discoveries in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. He also says the Proteus and Endymion pipelines will connect the Mattox pipeline—which the company’s sponsor, Shell Pipeline Co., is building—to onshore markets, creating a new corridor line that will transport all of recently sanctioned Appomattox’s volumes once it comes online toward the end of the decade. Read the full story.
Big deal: President-elect Donald Trump plans to make an announcement related to the economy this afternoon, his transition team says, adding it would be a boost to workers but giving no other details. As Reuters reports, Trump plans to make the statement between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. ET, incoming White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters on a conference call. A wealthy New York businessman, Trump pledged during his White House campaign to do more to protect workers’ interests. Since winning election last month, he has become personally involved in a series of company issues, including intervening to curb the number of jobs being sent to Mexico by United Technologies Corp.’s Carrier unit. He has also called on Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. to lower their costs for U.S. military and government projects. Read the full story.
Public display: It may be time for a baby boom in U.S. oil. As Bloomberg reports, rising crude prices and a deregulatory push in Washington may spur as many as 40 companies to hold initial public offerings over the next two years, potentially tripling 2016’s activity, according to Maynard Holt, chief executive officer at Houston-based investment bank Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. After a year in which explorers in the Permian shale basin straddling Texas and New Mexico dominated the business, interest in new oil-industry offerings is likely to spread wider. It could include pipeline operators and regions like the Bakken in North Dakota and Wyoming’s Powder River basin, Holt tells Bloomberg in a telephone interview today. Mergers and acquisitions should pick up as well. Read the full story.
