re: Energy M&A, who's getting who?

The targets will be companies who have proven reserves that cannot be produced profitably at current market prices, and suffer from negative cash flows. There are likely many publicly traded partnerships that will be gobbled up on the cheap that won't require as much due diligence and/or regulatory review that will be the first targets.

This is just my guess as an industry outsider with some experience analyzing PTP investments for clients. Many of the ones I've seen are very thinly capitalized and operate on very thin margins.