Charlie Passut

Rail carriers must test crude oil to ensure that it is properly classified before transport, and are prohibited from using the weakest packing classification for crude, under an emergency order issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT).

Executives at EOG Resources Inc. said 2013 was the company’s “best year on record,” with the Eagle Ford Shale driving a 40% year-over-year (y/y) increase in total crude oil and condensate production and overall production climbing more than 9%.

The number of new jobs created in Pennsylvania in six “core” industries related to development of the Marcellus Shale was 29% lower in 4Q2013 compared with 4Q2010, according to a monthly report by the state Department of Labor & Industry’s Center for Workforce Information & Analysis (CWIA).

Extremely cold temperatures have hammered away at the amount of gas kept in storage by Columbia Pipeline Group (CPG), with the company experiencing its second-largest withdrawal since 1993.

Pipeline executives told the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) on Wednesday that a loss of pressure at two regulator stations caused nearly 3,600 customers to temporarily lose natural gas service during two record cold spells brought on by the polar vortex last month.

Ultra Petroleum Corp. will invest more in Wyoming’s Pinedale Anticline and Utah’s Uinta Basin in 2014, part of a development plan to triple oil production and leave in the rear-view mirror two years the company would rather forget.

The availability of cheap and plentiful natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGL) from shale formations in the United States has led to more than $100 billion of investment in the nation’s chemical industry, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) said Thursday.

Cimarex Energy Co. executives said the company has completed two wells targeting the Wolfcamp Shale of the Permian Basin with 10,000-foot laterals and plans to drill three more at that length as it looks to continue testing and lock up the majority of its leases by 2017.

A newly formed group of citizens in Denton, TX, which sits the northern edge of the Barnett Shale, said Tuesday it is gathering signatures for a ballot initiative that basically would ban unconventional drilling by banning new wells from performing hydraulic fracturing (fracking) within the city limits.