Energy Transfer Makes “Indecent Proposal” to Buy Williams for $48B
Sunday evening MDN spotted what has to be THE biggest midstream story of 2015: Somebody wants to buy out and take over Williams Companies. The biggest midstream story of 2014 was the buyout of Access Midstream (the former Chesapeake Midstream) by Williams, creating a company that is nearly the size and certainly a worthy rival of the country’s biggest pipeline company Kinder Morgan (see Big News: Williams Partners Buying Access Midstream for $6B). Williams said at the time the “total transaction value” (or TTV) would create a combined company worth nearly $50 billion (see Deal Details for Williams/Access Midstream Merger – TTV of $50B!). Sunday evening Williams said, in a pair of prepared press releases, that somebody (they wouldn’t name who) has made an “unsolicited proposal” (almost sounding like an indecent proposal) to buy Williams for $64 per share, or a total deal worth $48 billion. Williams has rebuffed the offering, hiring some high-powered bankers to help them out of this mess. The guy and company making the offer, it has since been revealed, is none other than Kelcy Warren, CEO of both Energy Transfer Partners and Energy Transfer Equity, the main shareholder of ETP. ETP is very active in the Marcellus/Utica. We have as much as we can gather on Warren, background on ETP/ETE, his indecent proposal to Williams, and what Williams–one of if not THE largest midstream companies in the northeast–is doing in response to Warren’s proposal…
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It’s an LNG love story. Yesterday Shell announced they are buying BG Group, the former British Gas, for $69.7 billion dollars. To put it in perspective, in 1998 Exxon bought Mobil for $80 billion, forming what is now ExxonMobil. So this is that kind of scale–really really huge. The oil and gas industry is buzzing about the deal. Is this the first of many such consolidations, given the low price of oil? Will the Shell/BG deal impact shale drilling? What does it ultimately mean? We’ll leave it to others to discuss the broader implications. What we always wonder is, how will this affect the Marcellus/Utica? We have a few thoughts. Both Shell and BG have acreage in the Marcellus/Utica. But before we get to that, the first thing to understand about the Shell/BG deal is that it’s about LNG. This merger will make Shell the largest player in the global LNG market–easily twice the size of the nearest competitor…
In early February, MDN told you that EV Energy Partners, a company with a huge amount of leased acreage in the Ohio Utica Shale region, was looking to sell its 21% interest in Utica East Ohio (UEO)–a midstream/pipeline company operating in Ohio (see 
Several weeks ago MDN told you that yesterday, Feb. 2, would be the big wedding day for the merger (actually takeover) of Access Midstream by Williams (see 
Big news in the midstream (pipelines and processing plants) world. Today, Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) announced they are merging with and buying Regency Energy Partners in a deal with a total value of $24.8 billion–$18 billion in stock and cash, and $6.8 billion in assumed Regency debts. You may recognize both names, as both companies are active in the Marcellus and Utica Shale…