While private equity's march into the corporate world has been well documented of late, the industry has tended to stay away from the energy sector for a variety of reasons, including the volatility of the sector, which traditionally did not fit private equity's desire for stable cashflows.

In the past year, the energy industry has seen the biggest merger boom since the wave of consolidation that swept through the major oil companies at the end of the 1990s. But state-owned or controlled national