There will be deals. Or will there? Shares of oil-and-gas explorer Apache Corp. APA 13.15 % jumped by more than 10% Monday afternoon following a report by Bloomberg News of a takeover approach by an unidentified suitor. This added that the company had hired advisers to mount a defense strategy. If so, the possible suitor isn’t all hat and no cattle. Based on available firepower, a large, integrated energy company would make most sense. Still, the fact that none of Apache’s peers saw anything more than a brief price boost Monday morning suggests two things: that the bargains on offer among North American oil and gas producers aren’t quite compelling enough to kick off a round of consolidation and that the list of buyers is short. For what it is worth, shares of Exxon Mobil XOM -2.14 % were the […]