Wed Mar 25, 2009 11:18am EDT

By Anna Driver

NEW ORLEANS, March 25 (Reuters) - Investment bankers may dream of tie-ups between large independent oil and gas companies, but executives who could possibly do such a deal say they are not in the market.

On Monday, Canadian companies Suncor Energy Inc (SU.TO) and Petro-Canada (PCA.TO) announced a $15 billion stock deal, but U.S. oil and gas executives point to low share prices, still-frozen credit markets and the nation's vast gas reserves locked in shale plays as reasons to go it alone for now.

"I don't see that anybody needs to do anything right now, so I'd be surprised if any of the large-cap independents bought other independents or if a major bought a large independent," Aubrey McClendon, the chief executive of Chesapeake Energy Corp (CHK.N), told Reuters.

There may be some consolidation among small- to mid-sized companies looking to lower costs, McClendon said, adding that he would be surprised to see another deal the size of Suncor/Petro-Canada or the ConocoPhillips/Burlington Resources deal struck in 2006.

Chesapeake, with its 2.4 million acres in prime shale gas areas like the Haynesville play in Louisiana, is often chatted about as a juicy target for an oil major looking for exposure to big gas reserves in the porous rock.

"I don't really see a lot of M&A in the sector right now," Larry Benedetto, oil and gas analyst with Howard Weil, said at the company's annual energy conference.

Share prices are still too low for energy companies to consider a takeover, he said.

And with the advent of the shale plays, independent oil and gas companies now have huge inventories of natural gas that will "take them 8 or 10 years" to drill so they have no need to buy assets, Benedetto said.