Energy Roundup: NRG Shares Tendered to Exelon, Shell-BPZ Deal Collapses, and More

(CORRECTED: See below)

Large stake in NRG tendered to rival Exelon — NRG Energy stockholders have tendered nearly half of the power generator’s shares to Chicago-based power company Exelon. The move is part of Exelon’s unsolicited $6.3 billion offer for NRG, which would create the country’s largest power company, according to Exelon. [Source: AP]

Schlumberger, Halliburton cut jobs in oil slump — Schlumberger and Halliburton, the world’s two largest oilfield-services companies, are cutting jobs during a sagging market for oil and natural-gas exploration. Houston and Paris-based Schlumberger said it cut 1,000 jobs in North America yesterday. Houston-based Halliburton did not disclose the number of layoffs. [Source: Bloomberg]

Rhode Island, company sign wind-farm agreement — The state of Rhode Island has signed a joint development agreement with Hoboken, N.J.-based Deepwater Wind to build a wind farm in the state’s coastal waters. The company intends to build a 100 turbine wind farm that can generate 1.3 million megawatt-hours of electricity per year; it should provide 15 percent of the state’s electricity. [Source: Providence Business News]

Shell, development company end Peru talks — Oil and gas exploration company BPZ Resources cut off talks with Royal Dutch Shell on jointly developing properties in northwest Peru. Instead BPZ signed a seven-year, $1.3 billion crude-oil sales contract with PetroPeru. BPZ’s stock price stumbled immediately after. [Source: AP]

Solar subsidiary struggles for construction funding — SpectraWatt, the solar spinoff of chip-maker Intel, may abandon its plans to build a 65,000 square-foot plant in Oregon because it’s struggling to find financing. The company suspended construction plans and is searching in Oregon and elsewhere for an existing building to retrofit. [Source: The Oregonian]

Chevron expects poor fourth quarter — San Ramon, Calif.-based Chevron said large drops in crude oil prices will be a deep blow to its fourth-quarter earnings. For the first two months of the fourth quarter, Chevron said its crude oil averaged $61.70 per barrel, 45 percent less than the $122.22 a barrel it saw in the third quarter. [Source: AP]

Utility president says nuclear is Italy’s only hope — “Italy has the most advanced and efficient energy system of the world, based on combined cycle power plants. The only problem is that these plants need gas to work,” said Giuliano Zuccoli, president of energy utility Edison, which accounts for 17 percent of Italy’s power-generation capacity. “The only long-run solution for Italy is nuclear energy.” Supplies of natural gas to Europe have recently dropped by nearly a third because of the ongoing dispute between the Russian gas supplier Gazprom and Ukraine, through which much of gas destined for the EU travels. [Source: World Nuclear News]

Correction: An earlier version of this item incorrectly stated that Exelon had purchased an equity stake in NRG Energy. As noted above, NRG shareholders have merely tendered 106.3 million shares as part of Exelon’s unsolicited $6.3 billion bid for NRG. Exelon cannot purchase those shares until it receives regulatory approval for the deal and satisfies other conditions.