Word that oil and gas producer Pogo Producing Co. may be sold prompted Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services on Friday to put Pogo’s “BB” corporate credit rating on a watch.
Putting that rating on CreditWatch means the company’s rating can be raised, lowered or affirmed in the near term. Pogo disclosed Thursday it is considering “strategic [...]

Baosteel Group, China’s largest steelmaker, and a rival, Wuhan Iron & Steel Group, are seeking to invest in iron ore projects in Australia to secure supplies to meet rising demand.
“We are looking closely at potential iron ore projects,” Zhang Yong, Baosteel’s Australian investment manager, said in an interview before a mining conference that started Tuesday [...]

ONGC has won a large chunk of oil blocks but its track record in drilling oil is so poor that the company wants to tie up with foreign players to get in better technology for developing its deep-sea blocks.
However, the Petroleum Ministry till now is refusing to give ONGC’s proposals for foreign tie-ups the green [...]

Noble Energy, Inc. announced planned capital expenditures of $1.42 billion for 2007. Capital expenditures for 2006 totaled $1.87 billion, including $0.52 billion for acquisitions.
Approximately 26 percent of the 2007 capital program has been allocated for exploration opportunities including lease acquisitions and seismic, and 74 percent is dedicated to production, development and other projects. The domestic [...]

A consortium led by China’s biggest gold miner, Zijin Mining Group Co., has made a 94.6 million pound, or $185.4 million, offer for British copper miner Monterrico Metals PLC, in what could become China’s first outright takeover of an overseas listed company.
The proposed acquisition, announced earlier this week by Monterrico and Zijin, is the latest [...]

Quanex Corporation announced that on February 1, 2007 MACSTEEL Atmosphere Annealing, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Quanex, purchased substantially all the assets of Atmosphere Annealing, Inc. (AAI), a wholly owned subsidiary of Maxco, Inc.
AAI is a metal heat treating company with four plants located in the Midwest and fiscal 2006 sales of $46.6 [...]

MACSTEEL, a unit of Quanex Corp., has acquired the assets of Atmosphere Annealing Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Maxco Inc.
AAI is a metal heat treating company with four plants located in the Midwest and fiscal 2006 sales of $46.6 million. AAI specializes in high-volume, ferrous heat treating services for customers focused on automotive applications.
“AAI, [...]

Marathon Oil Corp. on Monday said it intends to increase its stock buyback program by $500 million.
The Houston-based oil producer and refiner has repurchased about 21 million shares for $1.7 billion under a $2 billion buyback program begun in January last year.
The additional repurchases would allow the company to acquire about 1.6 percent of its [...]

THE queue of coal vessels at the Newcastle Port has grown so large that some customers are deferring purchases rather than let their ships idle offshore for 20 days before loading.
Gloucester Coal this week revealed its demurrage costs - the amount it pays per tonne when a ship is forced to wait in the long [...]

Anadarko Petroleum Corp., the oil and natural-gas producer that made $22.5 billion in acquisitions last year, said Monday it expects to lay off “at least” 500 people as it sells assets and refocuses operations.
The job cuts would occur by May 30, according to a letter from Preston Johnson, vice president of Human Resources, filed [...]