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Press and Journal
01-06-2025
- Business
- Press and Journal
Dave and Alison's dream renovation on £1.2m Ellon home
Who: 'F1 addict' and retired managing director's advisor Dave Forbes, 74, and his wife, Alison, 66, who worked in logistics at Conoco, plus their adorable golden retriever, Blue. What: Milton Of Leask House, a gorgeous countryside home with five bedrooms, a dog grooming cabin, views of Bennachie, resident swans plus a self-contained flat above the double garage. Where: Around five miles from Ellon, less than a ten minute drive from Collieston. Back in 2011, I had just retired from working as managing director's advisor at IPIC (International Petroleum Investments Company). We had a very busy life in the Middle East – mainly Abu Dhabi – for 27 years. At the end of my career, I worked with the Mercedes Formula 1 team which was particularly enjoyable for me. I was a lifetime Formula 1 addict, and got to meet drivers like Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton. Coming back to the UK meant that we could have our own property. Because, living overseas, we lived in rental accommodation all the time with no opportunity to make it our own. So that was the driving thing for me. We finally had our own house and we could do whatever we wanted to do with it. We saw the property on the ASPC website, and it was like a dream come true. Our first impressions were of the lovely ponds and wildlife, including resident wild ducks and swans, the spacious and lavish greenery of the woodlands, and the unspoilt tranquillity of the area. It was in good condition at the time, but we felt that it was perhaps a little dated, and it didn't take full advantage of the available space. The way it was configured never really worked for us. We wanted to change the flow of the property so that it suited us better. We started in 2011 with the utility room. It was basically just a porch at the back of the house, and not really usable as a utility room – that, for me, was the most important change that we make quickly. Then we started on the bathrooms, and upgraded all of them. We just ripped everything out and started again. The self-contained flat above the garage wasn't really habitable for more than a night or two, so we upgraded that completely. And we installed the office. The biggest area we had to tackle was the kitchen. When we came here, the flooring was really outdoor flooring and it definitely wasn't suitable for domestic use indoors. We took it all up, dug it all out and re-laid the slab for the house. It was a a big job but it was a pleasure to get rid of the flooring because it was such a pain to live with. But it gave us the opportunity to rearrange the layout of the kitchen, install other electrical points and cables under the floor. The kitchen is my favourite part of the house now. I love to cook, so it's all based around that for me in the kitchen. For me, my favourite part is the office. I can sit in peace, surrounded by my computers and play to my heart's content. I don't mean playing games, I don't do that, but I can mess around with IT to my heart's content. It's comfortable, well-lit, quiet. It couldn't suit me better. As for outside, we added a greenhouse, dog cabin, tool shed, and henhouse. Before our golden retriever Blue, we had his mum and a couple litters of puppies. We get a lot of rain here and the retrievers would come home covered in mud, so it was essential to have a dog spa. Blue, in particular, is a large dog with the equivalent of size 12 feet. If he comes into the house at any time after being out for a muddy walk, it's a catastrophe! There's a dog bath which has a hydraulic lift so it can be lowered for the dog to get in and lifted to waist height so that the dogs can be washed and dried. It makes it easier for us humans as well. There's a dog hair dryer installed too. And we have an infrared ceiling mounted heater so that in winter they don't get cold. Blue loves the outside space here too. We have ponds, and we get a lot of wild ducks. We have had resident swans here every year since we moved here. They have bred here every year till this year. They have been phenomenal. Mr. Swan and I have had a few run-ins over the years, but we get on pretty well now. I was once helping get the swans back over to the pond when they found themselves in a field surrounded by cattle. I put them into a tub one by one to bring them home, and Mr. Swan didn't fully comprehend that I was trying to help, and he launched a full-blown attack. The swans were reunited within a short time as well – and my bruises healed pretty quickly too! Mr. Swan and I have had a great relationship since then. We feed them as well. It's really nice to have them right there on our doorstep. In renovating our home, we wanted to achieve an authentic, quality finish, that was consistent with the look and feel of the house when we purchased it. Our greatest challenge was to ensure that all our renovations were internally consistent, and conveyed a common theme of top quality. We like to think that we were largely successful in this endeavour. It's nice to reach a point where you can draw a line under all the improvements you wanted to make, and see them finished. It has been really rewarding.' Milton Of Leask House, Ellon, is on the market for offers over £1,200,000. To arrange a viewing contact Raeburn Christie Clark and Wallace on 01358 720777 or check out the website
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Energy private equity patiently waits to pounce and lead the next wave of oil and gas M&A amid crude oil, tariff chaos
As crude oil prices plunged and tariff chaos took hold in early April, oil and gas deal-making slammed on the brakes from a record-breaking pace to a virtual standstill. As the top oil supermajors in the U.S.—Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips—gobbled up smaller players, the next feeding frenzy was supposed to come from private equity-backed startups that had raised funds and were ready to feast on so-called, 'non-core' asset sales from the biggest oil producers. Now, energy-focused private equity firms are waiting and working behind the scenes amid the current uncertainty, looking for advantages or signs of distress to jump into the fray and start buying. But it may take longer than they initially expected. 'When you do have uncertainty, when you do have market dislocations, we have seen very compelling investment opportunities that tend to present themselves during those periods of time,' said Mark Teshoian, managing Partner and co-head of energy private equity at Kayne Anderson, told Fortune. 'Our expectation is that now will be no different. PE firm Kayne Anderson announced May 13 the closing of its $2.25 billion Kayne Private Energy Income Fund III, easily exceeding its initial $1.5 billion target. The firm in late April, for instance, committed $400 million to the Oklahoma City-based startup South Wind Exploration & Production—an oil and gas firm, not wind energy—which has yet to make any big acquisition moves. 'We don't know exactly where those opportunities will present themselves, but we have found that—when you have a little bit of uncertainty, a little bit of distress—having access to capital, having a good reputation in the industry, does tend to allow you to get deals done,' Teshoian said. 'In our experience, those deals have historically performed better when acquired or invested in during these more uncertain periods of time.' The biggest energy deals that closed in 2024 included Exxon buying Pioneer Natural Resources for $60 billion, Conoco snatching Marathon Oil for $22.5 billion, and Diamondback Energy acquiring Endeavor Energy Resources for $26 billion. The pending $53 billion purchase of Hess by Chevron won't close until this summer at the earliest because of an arbitration dispute. In the meantime, the remaining private equity firms focused on oil and gas built up a lot of dry powder that is now ready to be deployed, said Andrew Dittmar, principal analyst for Enverus Intelligence Research, including for assets such as Conoco potentially selling Marathon's legacy Oklahoma acreage position. But tariffs create cost concerns, especially when they are constantly in flux, and the lower oil prices create a greater mismatch in the bid-ask spread between buyers and sellers, he said, stalling out or killing most potential deals. 'The bigger public companies really pushed aggressively to consolidate,' Dittmar said. 'I think the private equities are ready to make some moves when assets do come up for sale if we go through a larger wave of non-core divestments.' Similar to Kayne Anderson launching South Wind, Post Oak Energy Capital recently backed the startups of Tiburon Oil & Gas, Ichthys Energy, and Quantent Energy last fall. Quantent made a modest initial deal in September, but the three have yet to publicly act otherwise. 'There's no lack of effort on trying to reach an agreement around bid-ask. We're not taking a holiday. We're not taking a wait-and-see approach,' said Frost Cochran, managing director and founding partner at Post Oak. 'But we are influenced by our view that oil prices could be low for a while.' Still, the Post Oak-backed companies are making 'small bite' deals that don't rise to press release levels, even if larger-scale deal making seems temporarily off the table, said Frost Cochran, managing director and founding partner at Post Oak. These are deals closer to $10 million than 'hundreds of millions,' he said. 'I think we could have a very disappointing year in transaction activity. Our base case is this could be a slow period this year, and activity picks up next year.' In the meantime, Cochran said, 'We focus more on the ground game for our portfolio companies, and that's why we're still actively buying small assets to bolt onto existing positions. The larger M&A stuff may just have to wait until we're past this period of volatility.' There is still some more modest M&A occurring since President Trump's tariff 'Liberation Day' in the beginning of April. Publicly traded Permian Resources, on which Cochran sits on the board, bought a large swatch of Apache's Permian Basin assets in New Mexico for $608 million in early May. But no other oil deals have exceeded $500 million. Citing the Permian Resources-Apache deal, Cochran said, bigger oil producers may be willing to sell some acreage at a discount to maintain their spending plans on their core assets and to keep their dividends fully funded. And the definition of what counts as 'non-core' assets put up for sale by companies could widen the longer crude oil prices remain weaker. 'If lower prices persist into 2026, that's when you may see companies start to become more elastic on the definition of what counts as a non-core asset as they divest to preserve cash and pay down debt and protect the dividend,' Dittmar said. The only deal bigger than Permian Resources since April 1 was focused entirely on more bullish natural gas, and not on crude oil, especially in the gassy Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania. In late April, EQT said it would buy Blackstone-backed Olympus Energy for $1.8 billion in the Marcellus. Just prior to tariffs, gas bullishness rose to the level that generalist hedge fund giant Citadel bought Haynesville Shale producer Paloma Natural Gas for $1.2 billion in March. So, while oil price futures remain hazier, there's more emphasis on natural gas, especially thanks to construction booms for both liquefied natural gas export facilities and for data centers that crave gas-fired power. Ben Davis, managing director at Energy Spectrum Capital, is very cognizant of that reality. U.S. grid demand was basically flat and increasing 0.2% per year for more than 15 years as of 2023, according to S&P Global Commodities Research. Now, it's slated to rise 1.7% per year from 2024 to 2050. 'That may not sound like a lot, but that's an incredible increase,' Davis said. 'We think it makes for an attractive investment environment.' Because the up-and-down cycles for oil and gas prices have occurred more frequently in the past decade and there are now fewer potential buyers because of consolidation, PE firms are willing to hold onto their portfolio companies for longer and run them more like publicly traded companies with an emphasis on free cash flow and returns. 'It's a very tough time to sell assets,' Davis said. 'People want to see how the dust settles.' 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Metro
13-05-2025
- Metro
Mum who beat cancer four times 'shot dead by man in freak accident'
A single mother who overcame cancer four times was allegedly shot dead by a man who claimed he accidentally fired his gun and didn't see anyone home. Jennifer James, 49, was inside her home in the Colorado town of Berthoud when a bullet pierced through her window and struck her in the upper arm and into her chest. James managed to call 911 and told the dispatcher she had been shot, then collapsed and stopped breathing, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by KDVR. First responders performed life-saving measures on James, but she died of her injuries at the scene on the night of April 28. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer at age 29 and spent two decades battling it. 'Jennifer was an incredible human being and was loved by so many people. She was bravely battling cancer yet again at the time that she was taken from us,' states a GoFundMe page for her four children, who have been left parentless. She died 'from a senseless act of violence from a gun shot', it states, and noted that 'somebody has been arrested and has confessed'. Investigators reviewed CCTV footage and spotted a Nissan Rogue SUV parked in front of James' home on 1st Street near Mountain Avenue around 11.15pm. The vehicle's headlights shut off moments later and the driver took off. A vehicle matching that description stopped at a Conoco gas station a few blocks away. Two days later, the Nissan crashed on Interstate 25 near Greenwood Village and the driver was identified as Ebenezer Worku, 20. Police body camera footage showed he had a handgun holster beneath his jacket. Worku admitted that he had a Glock 22 handgun that he used for target shooting and denied knowing anything about James' killing. Told that someone died, Worku appeared emotional, according to the affidavit. He then admitted that he was not familiar with the gun that he had received as a birthday gift, and accidentally discharged it while in the middle of the road. He said he tried to clear the chamber and set off another bullet not know that a round was present, and that he thought it hit a wall. Worku said the curtains of James' home were mostly closed and he did not think the bullet struck anyone, and that he drove away frightened. More Trending He has been charged with first-degree murder – extreme indifference, and is being held at Larimer County Jail on a $1.25million cash bond. Worku is scheduled to appear in court on June 6. 'Jennifer was the epitome of sunshine,' stated the GoFundMe page. 'Anyone who knew her thought of her as the nicest person they had known.' The fundraiser had received more than $55,000 as of Tuesday afternoon. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Prison officer caught sneaking into cupboard with inmate she 'proper fell in love with' is jailed MORE: Trump fawns over Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman on Middle East tour MORE: Teenagers laughed after killing pensioner by torching his home with fireworks
American Press
06-05-2025
- General
- American Press
Charles 'Bert' Berton Boudreaux
Charles Berton 'Bert' Boudreaux, 88, left his earthly home and entered the gates of heaven on Thursday, May 1, 2025. He was surrounded by his family and cared for by the kind staff of The Gardens of Lake Charles. Born June 13, 1936, raised in East Creole, he attended Creole High until the 12th grade. Cajun French being his native language, he learned English in first grade. As one of the first altar boys in Creole, Bert served faithfully from age 10 through the 10th grade, assisting at mass three days a week, before school. The priest would pick him up for mass at Our Lady of the Marsh in Chenier Perdue, followed by a second mass at Sacred Heart. Bert spent 30 years working in the oil industry as a Production Foreman for Conoco, both offshore and at the Grand Chenier plant, before retiring in 1985 at just 48 years old. During those years, he also worked for Cameron Construction on his days off. In August 1985, he built his second shrimp boat, 'Captain Kyle,' in his backyard; a project he took great pride in. He later returned to the oil field to work for Steen Production, until his second retirement in 1992. He coached a men's baseball league in Cameron and was an active member of the Cameron Knights of Columbus Council 5461 for over 20 years, later transferring to Christ the King for his remaining years. Bert was instrumental in building Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church in Cameron. He enjoyed carpentry and watching the New Orleans Saints and LSU Tigers. In June 1957, Hurricane Audrey washed away lower Cameron Parish. After three weeks, Bert discovered the love of his life, Betty, had survived. He wasted no time; on July 20, 1957, just one day ahead of their originally scheduled ceremony, they married. Bert and Betty shared 64 years of unwavering love until her passing. His devotion to his wife, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren defined his life, family was everything to him They loved to travel with their kids and grandkids, their favorites being Washington DC, Gatlinburg, and Branson, where they visited many times. He was known for his kindness, forgiveness, and generosity, but above all, for his endless love. Bert had a remarkable mind and a gift for storytelling, often reminiscing about his childhood, growing up in two large Cajun families, the Boudreauxs and the Richards, with more than 50 first cousins. His memories were rich, his heart full, and his legacy one of deep love and connection. Bert leaves to continue his legacy one daughter, Wendy (Dwight) Savoie of Grand Lake; one son, Kevin (Susan) Boudreaux of Creole; three granddaughters, Jendi (Travis) Benoit of Lake Charles, Alexis (Mitch) Smith of Carlyss, Sarah (Corey) Adams of White, Ga.; one grandson, Keaton Boudreaux of Creole; three great-grandsons and two great-granddaughters; two great-great-grandsons; numerous nieces and nephews, and Godchild, Christine Boudreaux Bertrand of Lake Charles. He is preceded in death by his wife, Betty Murphy Boudreaux; parents, Charles Boudreaux and Larica 'Chun' Richard Boudreaux of Creole; one brother, Perry Boudreaux, and one sister, Viola Bourriaque, all of Creole. The family will welcome relatives and friends at Hixson Funeral Home of Lake Charles on Tuesday, May 6, 2025 beginning at 3 p.m. until 8 p.m. with a rosary to be prayed at 6 p.m. Visitation will resume at the funeral home on Wednesday, May 7, 2025 at 10 a.m. until the procession leaves for the church at 1:30 p.m. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Creole at 3 p.m. Burial will follow at Sacred Heart Catholic Cemetery. Father Wayne Lebleu will officiate at the services. Pallbearers will be Keaton Boudreaux, Colby Benoit, Luke Benoit, Gregory Boudreaux, Jimmy Kelly and Paul Alexander. Please leave fond memories for the Boudreaux family at
Shafaq News
28-04-2025
- Politics
- Shafaq News
Reorganization underway: US-led coalition moves equipment in Eastern Syria
Shafaq News/ The US-led coalition has initiated a large-scale withdrawal of military equipment from two key bases in eastern Syria, according to a report from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Monday. The report states that more than 150 trucks and heavy equipment carriers entered the Al-Omar oil field and Conoco gas plant bases late on Sunday. The vehicles were seen moving military vehicles and logistical equipment toward coalition bases in al-Hasakah province. This movement is part of a broader reorganization of coalition forces in the region. The coalition is expected to maintain a presence at two bases, al-Shaddadi and Qasrak, located in areas controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in north-eastern Syria, in addition to a base in the north-eastern countryside of Aleppo and al-Raqqah provinces.
