A U.S. flagged oil tanker arrived at the Port of Corpus Christi, TX, on Wednesday to load Eagle Ford Shale crude for transport to other U.S. ports. The Jones Act of 1920 requires that any goods moved by water from one U.S. port to another must be carried by a U.S. flagged ship. The M/V Pennsylvania passed by the Harbor Bridge gateway to the inner harbor Wednesday and docked at the port’s Oil Dock No. 1, the Corpus Christi Caller Times reported. It is the U.S. built tanker’s first visit to the Corpus Christi port.

Linde North America said preliminary testing of its application to use liquefied natural gas (LNG) to fuel power-generating diesel engines (gensets) is proceeding well in southwest Pennsylvania. The test is being conducted by Pittsburgh-based producer Consol Energy‘s gas division. Consol is active in the Marcellus and Utica shales and has been testing the solution in three diesel engine-based gensets to produce power used by drilling rigs. The hybrid LNG-diesel solution, which lowers the cost of producing on-site power at oil and gas sites and burns cleaner than pure diesel, is a collaboration of Linde and American Power Group.

San Diego, CA-based Osage Exploration and Development Inc. said Thursday it has spudded its Hopfer 1-17H, a horizontal Mississippian Lime well, in Logan County, OK. The well, located in section 20-18N-3W, was spud on Sept. 17 and is operated by Devon Energy Corp. Osage Exploration has a 14.6% working interest in the well. “The Hopfer 1-17H is Osage’s second well to be drilled during the month of September and is located in the section adjoining our previously announced McPhail 2-18H,” said Osage CEO Kim Bradford. “We are hitting the milestones for our two well-per-month drilling program…” Osage, an independent exploration and production company focused on the horizontal Mississippian Lime formation and Woodford Shale plays in Oklahoma, said earlier in September that it had spudded its fourth horizontal oil well in the Mississippian and the rock quality appeared promising (see Shale Daily, Sept. 18).