Centre Partners Management LLC, Dallas, and its affiliate, private-equity firm Centre Southwest Partners LLC, has acquired a majority interest in Gray Wireline Service Inc. through newly formed Gray Energy Services LLC. Centre and its affiliates invested about $24 million in equity in Gray to acquire 60% of the company; management of Gray will own the balance. The Gray investment marks Centre Partners' first major transaction with Centre Southwest under their partnership to pursue investments in the energy sector. Centre Partners is investing in Gray Wireline through its fourth fund, Centre IV, which has about $780 million of committed capital. Centre Partners managing director Scott Perekslis says, "...Gray provides a tremendous platform to continue to expand into new geographies and to extend into complementary oilfield-services business lines. We consider our investment today to be a first step toward realization of this vision." • Davis Petroleum Corp., Houston, has reached an agreement with a private-equity group led by Evercore Capital Partners LP to recapitalize the company. Evercore, Red Mountain Capital Partners, Sankaty Advisors and management of Davis will purchase all of the equity of the company for $150 million. Davis has filed Chapter 11 to facilitate the transaction. • Boulder, Colorado-based Grey Mountain Partners is broadening its scope of energy investing. In late 2005 the firm acquired Utex Inc., a Houston-based manufacturer of fluid sealing solutions for the oil and gas and general industrial markets. The deal marked Grey Mountain's initial foray into energy investments. "As a firm, Grey Mountain Partners has been around about three years. [But] as individuals, we have been making investments like the one we made in Utex since the 1990s," says Ben Ault, senior associate. Grey Mountain is seeking majority interests in deals anywhere in North America within the range of $30- to $150 million of enterprise value, and will consider a smaller deal. Though recent activity has been focused on midstream projects, the firm is evaluating potential transactions from across the energy spectrum. • Management and strategy changes are in store at Oklahoma City-based Panhandle Royalty Co. (Amex: PHX). Longtime president and chief executive H.W. Peace II, who retired last month, has been replaced by chief financial officer Michael Coffman and chief operating officer Ben Hare as co-presidents. The company's market cap more than doubled last year, yet production has been flat and reserves have been declining slightly. • Carl Icahn-controlled American Real Estate Partners LP (NYSE: ACP), which controls National Energy Group Inc. (NEGI), Dallas, (OTCBB: NEGI) plans to offer its shares of NEG Inc. in an IPO. The number of shares to be offered and the price range have not yet been determined. NEG Inc. will merge with NEGI and be renamed National Energy Group Inc. Currently, NEGI owns an interest in NEG Oil & Gas LLC and manages the oil and natural gas assets of wholly owned subsidiary NEG Operating LLC. These assets are in the Val Verde and Permian basins of West Texas, the Cotton Valley Trend in East Texas, on the Gulf Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico, and in the Anadarko and Arkoma basins of Oklahoma and Arkansas. Additionally, NEGI manages the oil and gas assets of National Onshore LP (formerly TransTexas Gas Corp.) and National Offshore LP (formerly Panaco Inc.), also affiliated entities currently owned by NEG Oil & Gas LLC. The underwriting syndicate is led by Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc. and Citigroup Global Markets Inc. Upon consummation of the merger and the initial public offering, NEG Inc. will acquire a managing membership interest in NEG Oil & Gas LLC, which shall own all the assets formerly held by National Onshore LP, National Offshore LP and NEG Operating LLC. • Windsor Energy Resources Inc., Oklahoma City, has filed for an IPO with the Nasdaq National Market for proceeds of about $175 million. The number of shares and the share price range have not been determined yet. The proposed symbol is WERI. Johnson Rice & Co. LLC is lead underwriter. Proceeds will fund exploration and development and general corporate purposes, which may include acquisitions, working capital and the payment of about $4.5 million of debt under two bank loans. Windsor is focused on conventional and unconventional onshore reserves. It has unconventional-resource projects in the Powder River and Piceance basins in the Rockies and in the Cotton Valley and Travis Peak trends in East Texas, and conventional projects in the Big Horn Basin in the Rockies. It has unconventional prospects in the Williston Basin in Montana and North Dakota and in the Fayetteville Shale trend in Arkansas and Mississippi. • Rosetta Resources Inc., Houston, (Nasdaq: ROSE) shares opened at $19 and closed at $18.50 their first day public. The 50 million shares were privately placed in July at $19 each in a 144(a) offering by Friedman Billings Ramsey for aggregate proceeds of $950 million. Rosetta was formed in June 2005 and began oil and gas operations as a separate company in July 2005 following its acquisition of Calpine Corp.'s domestic oil and gas business. Rosetta acquires and develops mostly gas properties in the Sacramento Basin of California, South Texas, the Gulf of Mexico and the Rocky Mountains. • Calgary-based Trident Resources Corp. plans to file for an IPO of its common stock to provide funding for exploration and development. Trident has not determined the size of the offering or the stock exchange the shares will be listed upon. • Pioneer Natural Resources Co., Dallas, (NYSE: PXD) subsidiary Pioneer Resources Africa Ltd. has notified the Nigeria-Sao Tome and Principe joint-development authority that it is withdrawing from participation in blocks 2 and 3 of the joint-development zone offshore the two countries. • Range Resources Corp., Fort Worth, Texas, (NYSE: RRC) has expanded its shale-gas plays to cover 180,000 acres including 150,000 in the Devonian Shale in the Appalachian Basin, 20,000 in the Barnett/Woodford Shale in the Permian Basin and 10,000 in the Barnett Shale in the Fort Worth Basin. Range reports it continues to actively lease in these plays and is also beginning to lease in the Fayetteville Shale play. • Amerada Hess Corp., New York, (NYSE: AHC) plans to change its name to Hess Corp. • Cal Dive International Inc., Houston, (Nasdaq: CDIS) has changed its name to Helix Energy Solutions Group Inc. and its stock symbol on the Nasdaq exchange to HELX. • Dallas-based Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Inc. has named Edward Herring, Eric Lindberg and Jason H. Downie partners, and the firm is now called HM Capital Partners LLC. John R. Muse remains chairman. HM Capital is currently investing and managing a $1.6-billion fund. • Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors LP, Houston, has named David Iverson a senior vice president of its energy private-equity team. Iverson has held senior reservoir engineering positions with Netherland, Sewell & Associates; Arco Oil & Gas and Vastar Resources. • Deutsche Bank reports that Jim Rogers is joining its energy investment-banking group as a managing director and co-head of energy investment banking in North America. Rogers will be based in Houston and report to Michael Johnson, head of energy, utilities and chemicals investment banking in the Americas. Rogers was a managing director and senior energy investment banker at Citigroup. • A pilot program has been created in seven Bureau of Land Management offices in five western states to provide one-stop shopping for companies seeking federal permits to drill on federal oil and gas leases. The program is to shave months and possibly years of bureaucratic delays off the permitting process. • Enhanced oil recovery using carbon dioxide could add 89 billion bbl. to recoverable U.S. oil resources, according to the Department of Energy. Current U.S. proved reserves are about 21.9 billion bbl. • The numbers are in: some 13,000 people attended NAPE Expo 2006 in Houston, the most ever, according to the show's lead organizer, the American Association of Professional Landmen. Another record was set for number of booths: 1,241. Now ranking in second place are the 2005 figures: 10,777 attendees and 1,038 booths.