?• Rodney Kubicek has joined Randy Newcomer Jr. in forming acquire-and-exploit-based Riverbend Exploration and Production Co., Houston, with funding from Kayne Anderson. Newcomer’s onshore U.S.-focused Riverbend Production?LP was divested last fall. He previously was with EnCap Investments LP. Kubicek was with Continental Land & Fur, Albrecht & Associates Inc., several private producers and Arco Oil & Gas.

• David Myers and Randy Click?have formed Plano, Texas-based Cisco Energy LLC to focus on?onshore conventional and unconventional E&P opportunities in the Permian Basin, Midcontinent, South Texas and Rockies.?Equity commitments have been provided by the founders and by private-equity firm Natural Gas Partners.?Myers is chief executive officer, and responsible for engineering and operations; Click is president, and responsible for business development and land. Myers and Click?were formerly with Randy Hill?in the management team at Grayhawk Energy Corp. and Cortez Oil & Gas, which were also NGP-sponsored companies.

• After originally scaling down and then postponing, Pioneer Natural Resources Co., Dallas, (NYSE: PXD) has IPO’d its MLP Pioneer Southwest Energy Partners LP with 8.25 million units offered at approximately $20 each for a total raise of $165 million on the New York Stock Exchange as PSE. Citi, Deutsche Bank Securities and UBS Investment Bank were book-running managers.
Pioneer Southwest planned to sell 12.5 million units at approximately $20 each for estimated gross proceeds of $250 million before scaling the plan to 7.5 million units and then postponing the deal indefinitely.
The MLP will use the proceeds to pay its parent for oil and gas properties. Pioneer offered 28.7% limited-partner interest (31.6% if underwriters fully exercise overallotment rights). Pioneer owns a 0.1% general-partner interest and a 73.3% limited-partner interest in Pioneer Southwest (68.4% if the overallotment is exercised).
Pioneer Southwest owns producing properties in Spraberry Field in the Permian Basin of West Texas and will acquire producing properties in its area of operations, including onshore Texas and eight counties in southeastern New Mexico. The assets include 64% nonoperated working interest in approximately 1,100 producing wells.
Production as of Sept. 30 was 5,117 BOE per day. Estimated proved reserves as of year-end 2007 were 32.1 million BOE. The properties have a reserve life of 15 years.

• San Antonio-based Abraxas Energy Partners LP has amended its S-1 and will now IPO 3.4 million common units for approximately US$24.25 each for gross proceeds of some $80.9 million on the American Stock Exchange as ABE. RBC Capital Markets and C.K. Cooper & Co. are underwriters.
The deal was originally for 2 million common units for estimated gross proceeds of some $56 million. Abraxas will offer 3 million units and selling unit-holders will offer 350,481. Abraxas will not receive any proceeds from the unit-holders’ sale.
The MLP plans to use proceeds to pay $35 million of credit-facility debt, fund capex and working capital, and for other purposes. Its assets consist of producing and nonproducing properties in the Permian Basin in West Texas and in the Gulf Coast Basin in South Texas, including 81% average working interest in 104 producing wells. Net proved reserves at year-end were 130.2 billion cu. ft. equivalent (70% gas; 67% proved developed). The assets’ reserves-to-production profile is 12.7 years, and they are 70% operated.
The MLP was formed in May 2007 with Abraxas Petroleum Corp., San Antonio, (Amex: ABP) assets for some $100 million from unit-buyers who received some 6 million common units. The unit-holders include Lehman Brothers MLP Opportunity Fund LP and Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Third Point LLC and funds managed by Fiduciary Asset Management LLC, Merrill Lynch Commodity Partners LP and Tortoise Capital Resources Corp.
Abraxas Petroleum will own a 2% general-partner interest in the MLP upon closing the IPO, and a 38.3% limited-partner interest. The MLP plans to pay $0.375 per unit quarterly. Its 2006 and first-quarter 2007 available cash would have been sufficient to pay 85% and 87%, respectively, of this distribution.

• Anadarko Petroleum Corp., The Woodlands, Texas, (NYSE: APC) has commenced the IPO of its midstream MLP Western Gas Partners LP for 18.75 million units at approximately $17 to $19 each for a total raise of up to $356.3 million on the New York Stock Exchange as WES.
UBS Investment Bank, Citi, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, Banc of America Securities LLC, Goldman, Sachs & Co., JPMorgan, Lehman Brothers, Wachovia Securities, Scotia Capital, Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc., Friedman Billings Ramsey and Stifel Nicolaus are joint book-running managers.
Western Gas Partners will use the proceeds to pay Anadarko $337.6?million and general partner Western Gas Holdings LLC, a subsidiary of Anadarko, for its assets and IPO fees. Anadarko will use proceeds to pay a po

?tion of its credit-facility debt.
Robert G. Gwin is president and chief executive of the general partner and vice president, finance, and treasurer of Anadarko. He was CEO of Community Broadband Ventures LP. Danny J. Rea is senior vice president and chief operating officer of the general partner and vice president, midstream, of Anadarko. He was manager, midstream services. Michael C. Pearl is senior vice president and chief financial officer of the general partner and director, corporate tax, of Anadarko. He was corporate tax manager.
Western Gas Partners has a total 2,812 miles of pipeline in East Texas, West Texas, the Rockies and the Midcontinent with approximately 2,500 reception points. Anadarko has dedicated to the MLP all gas production it owns or controls from wells connected to Western Gas Partners’ gathering systems, and additional wells that are drilled within one mile of connected wells or its gathering systems.
Volumes associated with these assets as of Dec. 31 were approximately 725 million cu. ft. of gas per day. The total average throughput is 796 million cu. ft. per day.
A large portion of the MLP’s assets were acquired in 2006 in Anadarko’s purchase of Rockies-focused Western Gas Resources Inc.

• ING Wholesale Banking, the corporate- and investment-banking division of New York-based ING Group, has added five senior bankers from Dallas-based Comerica Bank to operate a new natural resources finance office in Houston. Charles Hall has been named managing director of the E&P-focused Houston unit.
He has experience in upstream and midstream banking at Comerica, was senior vice president in Den Norske Bank’s energy finance group and was executive director the U.S. emergency oil and gas loan guarantee board.
Juli Bieser has been named director; Michael Price, director and petroleum engineer; Huma Manal, vice president; and Josh Strong, associate.
ING global head of structured finance Christopher Steane says, “Charles and his team bring a depth of sector knowledge and transaction experience that will enhance ING’s energy sector capabilities in the U.S. market.”

• BMO Capital Markets, the investment- and corporate-banking arm of Toronto-based BMO Financial Group, (NYSE, Toronto: BMO) has named Carl L. Kirst senior research analyst. He has experience in sell-side research and as a gas analyst with Credit Suisse Securities, Merrill Lynch and Jefferies & Co. , and helped establish investor-relations agency Dennard Rupp Gray & Easterly.
BMO Capital co-head of equity research Jack Blackstock says, “With Carl Kirst covering natural gas companies in both the U.S. and Canada, we continue to build upon our crossborder strategy of providing our clients with relevant and integrated investment ideas.”

• Stavanger, Norway-based private-equity firm Energy Ventures has named Jim Sledzik and Anoop Poddar investment managers.
Sledzik was global marketing director and vice president, multiclient services, for WesternGeco and global account director for Schlumberger.?Poddar was vice president, corporate finance division, of Simmons & Co. International.
Espen Strøm has been named analyst. He was a financial analyst with ExxonMobil and an auditor with Ernst &Young.