Boone Pickens' firm buys Valero shares in Q1-filing

NEW YORK, May 15 (Reuters) - BP Capital, the investment management firm led by billionaire energy investor T. Boone Pickens, added shares of oil refiner Valero Energy Corp to his holdings in the first quarter for the first time since 2008.
Valero is one of the refiners that could be poised to benefit from the recent boom in oil output from the Bakken shale in North Dakota and from Canadian oil sands.
U.S. refiners along the Gulf Coast can look forward to refining cheaper crude flowing out of the U.S. Midwest than more costly imports.
Last week, BP made the first offer to sell crude oil to the U.S. Gulf from Cushing, Oklahoma, where a glut of oil has been pooling at a discount to Brent crude oil, the global benchmark.
BP Capital bought 188,000 Valero shares worth $4.8 million in the first quarter of 2012. That compares with its holdings of 1,465,108 shares worth $44.3 million at the end of the September 2008 quarter, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
In the quarter through Dec. 31, 2011, Pickens bought 49,000 shares of independent liquefied natural gas tanker company Golar LNG.
He has since boosted those holdings by some 92,000 shares to 141,000 during the quarter ended March 31, the most recent report on the fund's holdings.
Spot cargoes of LNG in Asia have fetched as much as $18 per million British thermal units this month, a four-year high.
That is more than seven times the current price of U.S. June natural gas futures prices.
Pickens cut some 71,000 shares of his holdings in number two U.S. natural gas producer Chesapeake Energy Corp between Dec. 31, 2011 and March 31. As of the end of the first quarter of 2012 he had 499,055 shares, according to the SEC filing.
Pickens said he sold all the stock after that, according to published reports.
BP Capital spokesman Jay Rosser told Reuters as a matter of policy, "we don't discuss our positions - past, present or future."
"That said, remember, this is a filing as of March 31, and may or may not accurately reflect our holdings today," Rosser added.
Reuters reported that Chesapeake's chief executive Aubrey McClendon took loans out against the stakes he owned in Chesapeake wells and that he ran a hedge fund that traded in the same commodities that the company produces.
Pickens said he sold his Chesapeake stock because he was worried about falling natural gas prices, according to a CNBC report on May 10.
Pickens continued to hold 1,181,417 shares of SandRidge Energy, which were worth $9.2 million as of the most recent filing.
Tom Ward, co-founder of Chesapeake, is chairman and chief executive of SandRidge. The company reported record oil production in the first quarter of 2012 with 3.4 million barrels.
Investment fund managers who oversee $100 million or more in equities are required to file a Form 13F to report their securities holdings to the SEC 45 days after the end of the quarter.