ExxonMobil Corp. has recently begun drilling at the Point Thomson oil and gas field on the North Slope in Alaska, the company said. Last month ExxonMobil said it had mobilized an upgraded drilling rig that can be used in the deep reservoirs using extended-reach drilling technology (see Daily GPI, April 24). It also said first production from the play is on track to begin by year-end 2014. The rig, owned by Nabors Alaska, was moved from Deadhorse on the North Slope to the drilling site in modules, some weighing more than one million pounds. Because there are no permanent roads to Point Thomson, Fairweather E&P Services Inc. and Nanuq/AFC constructed more than 30 miles of ice road. Most of the ice road follows the shoreline along the Beaufort Sea.

Clean Energy Fuels Corp., a Seal Beach, CA-based natural gas for transportation provider, said it has agreed to acquire the natural gas fueling station business of Exterran Holdings Inc. for an aggregate price of $5.9 million. The acquisition agreement includes station operation and maintenance contracts with four transit operators and eight fueling facilities dispensing 25 million gasoline gallon equivalents annually. The transit agencies involved are the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the nation’s largest clean air bus fleet; Montgomery County Transit in Maryland; Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority in Washington, DC; and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in Boston. Along with the volume and revenue additions, Clean Energy strategically “expands its participation in the transit industry nationwide” through the acquisition, according to CEO Andrew Littlefair. He said more than 20% of the nation’s transit buses now run on natural gas.

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