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Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Apache Acquires 14 Blocks in Central GoM Lease Sale 227 ...

Apache Corporation (NYSE: APA) today announced that its subsidiaries were the apparent high bidders on nine shallow water blocks and five deepwater blocks in the recent Gulf of Mexico lease sale held by the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. Lease Sale 227, held March 20 in New Orleans, received 407 bids from 52 companies on 320 tracts, with the high bids totaling more than $1.2 billion.

On the continental shelf, Apache was the sole bidder on all nine blocks where it submitted bids. The company partnered on seven blocks in the Main Pass area, forming a new joint venture with Apache as the operator and holding a 75-percent working interest. The JV is currently shooting seismic over a 633,000-acre area using new wide azimuth technology to collect data and images under and around salt dome structures.

The company holds a 100-percent working interest in its two other shelf leases acquired in the sale. Apache is currently the largest leaseholder on the Gulf of Mexico's continental shelf with interests in more than 500 blocks.

In the deepwater, Apache was high bidder on five of nine bids, with a 50-percent working interest in each lease. Leases were acquired in the DeSoto Canyon, Green Canyon and Mississippi Canyon lease areas, growing the company's prospect inventory with properties near existing industry discoveries. With the exception of one block, all bids were competitive with other GOM operators.

Overall, the company's net exposure for its winning bids was $2.2 million for the shelf and $24.6 million for deepwater blocks.

"With new acreage, new investments and new ideas, we expect that the Gulf of Mexico will continue to generate strong cash flows and excellent returns," said Jon Jeppesen, executive vice president.

About Apache

Apache Corporation is an oil and gas exploration and production company with operations in the United States, Canada, Egypt, the United Kingdom North Sea, Australia and Argentina. Apache posts announcements, operational updates, investor information and copies of all press releases on its website, www.apachecorp.com.

Forward-looking statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "seeks," "believes," "estimates," "expects" and similar references to future periods. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements about seismic date acquisition, potential drilling locations, planned drilling activity, future production, and exploration prospects, and Apache's ability to execute on production and development plans in the Gulf of Mexico. While forward-looking statements are based on assumptions and analyses made by us that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances, whether actual results and developments will meet our expectations and predictions depend on a number of risks and uncertainties which could cause our actual results, performance, and financial condition to differ materially from our expectations. See "Risk Factors" in our 2012 Form 10-K and our subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a discussion of risk factors that affect our business. Any forward-looking statement made by us in this news release speaks only as of the date on which it is made. Factors or events that could cause our actual results to differ may emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for us to predict all of them. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future development, or otherwise, except as may be required by law.

Posted in: News, M&A

Source: http://www.benzinga.com/news/13/04/3461764/apache-acquires-14-blocks-in-central-gom-lease-sale-227

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Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Britney Spears & Family Back Home For Doggone Great Easter ...

Britney Spears enjoyed Easter Sunday with her family down South, and we?ve got the shots for you right here on RadarOnline.com.

The mother-of-two, looking nice in a patterned dress, attended church with her mother Lynne and her boys, Jayden James and Sean Preston Federline, in her native Amite, La.

PHOTOS: Britney Spears A Southern Belle Again For Easter

The 31-year-old Toxic singer posted on her Facebook page, ?Happy Easter! Blessed to be spending the day with my family back home (?missing my little Hannah though, she doesn?t like to fly.)?

She posted a pic of the adorable dog (Hannah) with the greeting.

PHOTOS:? Britney Spears Shops For Barbie Dolls In Kentwood

Brit?s new boyfriend, David Lucado, was not spotted with her for the holiday.

Source: http://radaronline.com/exclusives/2013/04/britney-spears-photos-easter/

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Texas DA's killing puts other prosecutors on alert

This undated photo taken from the Kaufman County, Texas, website shows Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland. McLelland and his wife were found killed in their house, Saturday, March 30, 2013, two months after one of his assistants was gunned down near their office, authorities said. (AP Photo/Kaufman County)

Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes, center, walks away after a news conference in Kaufman, Texas, on Sunday March 31, 2013. On Saturday, Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were murdered in their home. (AP Photo/Mike Fuentes)

Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes, right, speaks at a news conference, Sunday, March 31, 2013, in Kaufman, Texas. On Saturday, Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were murdered in their home. (AP Photo/Mike Fuentes)

A Kaufman County Sheriff's deputy walks near the taped-off property of Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland, near Forney, Texas, on Sunday, March 31, 2013. On Saturday, McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were murdered in their home. (AP Photo/Mike Fuentes)

In this Saturday, March 30, 2013 photo, authorities work in the middle of Blarney Stone Way where Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and wife Cynthia McLelland were found dead in their home in Forney, Texas. (AP Photo/The Dallas Morning News, Ian C. Bates) MANDATORY CREDIT; MAGS OUT; TV OUT; INTERNET OUT; AP MEMBERS ONLY

KAUFMAN, Texas (AP) ? Deputies escorted some Kaufman County employees into the courthouse Monday, two days after the district attorney and his wife were found shot to death in their home in an attack that stirred fears that other public employees could be targeted by assassins.

Law enforcement officers were seen patrolling one side of the courthouse, one holding a semi-automatic weapon, while others walked around inside.

Authorities have said little about the investigation into the deaths of Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, whose bodies were found Saturday.

The slayings raised concerns about the safety of public employees across the state, coming just two months after Kaufman County Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse was killed in a parking lot near the courthouse.

Deputies were called to the McLelland home by relatives and friends who had been unable to reach the pair, according to a search warrant affidavit.

When they arrived, investigators found the two had been shot multiple times. Cartridge casings were scattered near their bodies, the affidavit said.

Authorities have not discussed a motive.

"I don't want to walk around in fear every day ... but on the other hand, two months ago, we wouldn't be having this conversation," County Judge Bruce Wood, the county's top administrator, said Monday at a news conference.

The killings also came less than two weeks after Colorado's prison chief was shot to death at his front door, apparently by an ex-convict.

Law enforcement agencies throughout Texas were on high alert, and steps were being taken to better protect other DAs and their staffs.

In Harris County, which includes Houston, District Attorney Mike Anderson said he accepted the sheriff's offer of 24-hour security for him and his family. Anderson said he also would take precautions at his office, the largest of its kind in Texas, with more than 270 prosecutors.

"I think district attorneys across Texas are still in a state of shock," Anderson said Sunday.

McLelland, 63, was the 13th prosecutor killed in the U.S. since the National Association of District Attorneys began keeping count in the 1960s.

Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes would not give details Sunday of how the killings unfolded and said there was nothing to indicate for certain whether the DA's slaying was connected to Hasse's.

El Paso County, Colo., sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Joe Roybal said investigators had so far found no evidence connecting the Texas killings to the Colorado case, but added: "We're examining all possibilities."

Colorado's corrections director, Tom Clements, was killed March 19 when he answered the doorbell at his home outside Colorado Springs. Evan Spencer Ebel, a white supremacist and former Colorado inmate suspected of shooting Clements, died in a shootout with Texas deputies two days later about 100 miles from Kaufman.

In an Associated Press interview shortly after the Colorado slaying, McLelland himself raised the possibility that Hasse was gunned down by a white supremacist gang.

McLelland, elected in 2010, said his office had prosecuted several cases against such gangs, particularly one known as the Aryan Brotherhood. The groups have a strong presence around Kaufman County, a mostly rural area dotted with subdivisions, with a population of about 104,000.

No arrests have been made in Hasse's Jan. 31 slaying. After that attack, McLelland said, he carried a gun everywhere around town, even when walking his dog. He figured assassins were more likely to try to attack him outside. He said he had warned all his employees to be constantly on the alert.

"The people in my line of work are going to have to get better at it," he said of dealing with the danger, "because they're going to need it more in the future."

The number of attacks on prosecutors, judges and senior law enforcement officers in the U.S. has spiked in the past three years, according to Glenn McGovern, an investigator with the Santa Clara County, Calif., district attorney's office who tracks such cases.

For about a month after Hasse's slaying, sheriff's deputies were parked in the district attorney's driveway, said Sam Rosander, a McLelland neighbor.

The FBI and the Texas Rangers joined the investigation into the McLellands' deaths.

McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, had two daughters and three sons. One son is a police officer in Dallas.

___

Riccardi reported from Denver. Associated Press writers Michael Graczyk in Houston, Angela K. Brown in Fort Worth and P. Solomon Banda in Denver contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-04-01-District%20Attorney%20Dead-Texas/id-cbeed5dcbb2d4e8fbb6e3cf39669b60e

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Reader recommendation: The Hopkins Touch

Monitor readers share their favorite book picks.

By Jeff Sander, Oconomowoc, Wis. / April 1, 2013

The Hopkins Touch: Harry Hopkins and the Forging of the Alliance to Defeat Hitler by David L. Roll tells the story of the man in the shadow who organized the Lend-Lease program before the US entered World War II and who, most importantly, facilitated the alliance between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. Hopkins filled a role every bit as important as that of Marshall or Eisenhower. ?Without Harry Hopkins helping to forge and hold together the allied alliance, World War II would not have been over in 1945. This is a fascinating story about a man who deserves vastly more recognition for his vital and selfless contribution to the defeat of Hitler.

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Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/cZePI-mbGpQ/Reader-recommendation-The-Hopkins-Touch

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Francis to pray at tomb of Peter, first pope, in visit to Vatican necropolis

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis will spend Monday's Vatican holiday praying at the tomb of Peter, the church's first pontiff, during a visit to the excavated necropolis under St. Peter's Basilica.

A Vatican statement called the visit private, but promised to release photos and video later in the day. The basilica was built over the location where early Christians would gather in secret, at a time of persecution in ancient Rome, to pray at an unmarked tomb believed to be that of Peter, the apostle Jesus chose to lead his church.

In past years, popes often spent the day after Easter, known in Italy as "little Easter," at Castel Gandolfo, the Vatican palace in the Alban Hills, a short drive from Rome. But that oasis of sprawling gardens and strolling paths in the quaint hill town is occupied by the predecessor of Francis, Benedict XVI, who spent the last hours of his papacy there before becoming the first pope in 600 years to retire. Benedict is staying in Castel Gandolfo until a monastery at the Vatican in Rome can be readied for him.

Many Italians spend "little Easter" by having a picnic lunch in the countryside or in city parks, and Francis told Romans and tourists who gathered in St. Peter's Square on Monday at noon to see him to "have a good lunch." Francis said he was praying that Easter would inspire the faithful so that "hatred gives way to love, lies to truth," and that it would especially comfort those in "most need of trust and hope."

He spoke to them from the studio window of the apartment in the Apostolic Palace overlooking the square. Benedict and popes before him lived there, but so far Francis, who stresses simplicity, has declined to move into the quarters. Instead, he has continued to stay in a hotel on Vatican City's grounds, the same residence where as Buenos Aires archbishop he stayed with fellow cardinals to elect Benedict's successor.

They chose him, Jorge Bergoglio, the first pontiff from South America.

St. Peter's mission was to continue to preach the message of Jesus and reach more souls. Francis, as a Jesuit, is steeped in the evangelizing mission of the church, and the necropolis tour brings him back to the origins of the church in its simplest years as a community of Christians professing their faith in defiance of the crackdown by Roman emperors.

Peter himself was among the Christian martyrs during Nero's reign. He is believed to have been crucified, head down, on the Vatican hill.

Constantine, the first Christian emperor, had an early basilica built on the slopes of the Vatican Hill, burying the pagan and Christian cemetery ? necropolis means 'city of the dead' ? that surrounded Peter's burial site. The current basilica, named after St. Peter, was constructed over the earlier basilica that was deemed unsafe and demolished in the late 15th century. The Baroque master architect Bernini designed the bronze canopy over the central altar over the spot of Peter's burial site. The current basilica was planned as an awe-inspiring monument that would project the image of a powerful church.

Under popes of the last century, extensive excavations were carried out of the sprawling necropolis. In 1965, archaeologists said they had found the bones of Peter in an area near an ancient Greek inscription saying "Peter is here."

Part of a nearby necropolis came to light in 2003 during construction of a parking lot.

A few years ago, the Vatican unveiled the largest and most luxurious of the pagan tombs under St. Peter's Basilica, that of a family of former slaves. Guided tours of the necropolis, upon appointment, have been one of the most sought-after attractions for tourists to the Vatican.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/francis-pray-tomb-peter-first-pope-visit-vatican-125832998.html

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Senators reach 'substantive agreement' on immigration

gty rally 130315 wblog Schumer: Gang of 8 Has Substantive Agreement on Immigration Issues

Immigration Reform Rally

WASHINGTON - Sen. Chuck Schumer said today that while there is not a final deal on immigration legislation just yet, the bi-partisan "Gang of Eight" senators working on immigration reform has reached a "substantive agreement" on the major components of an immigration plan.

"It is not a done deal. We have to draft the legislation. We have to have the group of eight sign off on the specific language, but we have substantive agreement on all the major pieces now between the eight of us," the Democrat from New York said in an interview with ABC News Sunday.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., made a similar statement today and said that he expects the parameters of the plan to be revealed next week.

"I think we've got a deal. We've got to write the legislation, but 2013, I hope, will be the year that we pass bipartisan immigration reform," Graham said on CNN's "State of the Union." "It's got to be written off. We haven't signed off. There are a few details yet. But conceptually, we have an agreement between business and labor, between ourselves that has to be drafted. It will be rolled out next week."

On Friday, business and labor leaders came to an agreement on a visa program for low-skilled immigrant workers, a major turning point in the debate on immigration reform.

In what the AFL-CIO described as the "W-Visa" program, 20,000 visas would be available for low-skilled workers beginning in April of 2015. The number of available visas would increase gradually in the following years but would never go above 200,000 or dip below 20,000 in any given year. Only 15,000 visas would be allocated to construction jobs each year.

"The fact that business and labor have come to an agreement overcomes the last major substantive hurdle we've had in our negotiations," Schumer told ABC News.

But the deal on a guest worker program does not mean the senate group's plan is finalized, because the Gang of Eight still has to hammer out details including border security and the path to citizenship and write the actual legislation.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., one of the members of the bipartisan group working on immigration, said today that reports of a final deal being reached are "premature," and he called for more hearings and discussion on the topic of immigration so that a "healthy public debate" is conducted.

"Arriving at a final product will require it to be properly submitted for the American people's consideration, through the other 92 senators from 43 states that weren't part of this initial drafting process," Rubio said in a statement. "In order to succeed, this process cannot be rushed or done in secret."

ABC News' Carlos Boettcher contributed to this report.

KKK rallies, protesting renaming of Memphis parks

A North Carolina-based faction of the Ku Klux Klan held a rally Saturday in Memphis to protest the renaming of three parks that had Confederate-themed names.

By Adrian Sainz,?Associated Press / March 31, 2013

As Memphis Police in riot gear line up, Alvianca McLemore holds a sign of love, while waiting for a KKK rally in Memphis, Tenn. Saturday. The Ku Klux Klan announced plans to protest in Memphis after the Memphis City Council renamed three Confederate-themed city parks in February.

Mark Weber/The Commercial Appeal/AP

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About 60 members of the Ku Klux Klan rallied Saturday in Memphis to protest the renaming of three Confederate parks.

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The rally was peaceful, with no injuries or property damage and only one arrest for disorderly conduct, Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong said. The police presence was heavy in a closed-off section of downtown Memphis.

Klan members were bused to and from the protest and were relegated to a fenced-in section in front of the Shelby County courthouse. Some wore pointed white hoods and waved flags with the letters 'KKK' on them.

Police said an anti-Klan rally located in another fenced-in area about 100 yards away attracted 1,275 people throughout the day. Some chanted "KKK, go away."

A North Carolina-based faction of the Klan came to protest after the City Council voted to rename Nathan Bedford Forrest Park, Jefferson Davis Park and Confederate Park. Forrest was a slave trader, Confederate cavalryman and member of the first version of the Klan.

Bystander Veronica Milton, 37, viewed the protest as an educational experience, though she described the Klan's white supremacist message as sad.

"Everybody has different opinions, different voices," said Milton, who is black. "There's nothing wrong with seeing things from every side."

A family-themed event organized to counter the rally at a separate location featured more than 1,500 people who ate from food trucks, listened to live music and attended a diversity workshop.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/oo8U3E2sLE8/KKK-rallies-protesting-renaming-of-Memphis-parks

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