Acquisition creates powerful independent energy company

ONE RECENT MERGER that is not spelling disaster for New Orleans oil and gas professionals is the December purchase of Forcenergy Inc. by Forest Oil Corp. In fact, Forest plans to increase its local technical staff to handle greater exploration activity.

Recent mergers among energy companies

Bob Gerdes, senior vice president of Forest's Gulf of Mexico business unit, says Forest plans to add five to 10 new positions to the current 30-person technical staff of Forcenergy, a company that was headquartered in Miami but conducted its Gulf of Mexico operations from a Metairie office.

While Forest is consolidating another 30 primarily accounting jobs from Metairie to Denver and closing Forcenergy's Miami office, Gerdes says these moves will boost the efficiency of the combined companies. The larger exploratory staff in Metairie will strengthen their overall position in the Of. Forcenergy also had 200 offshore employees.