2Q2012

Baker Hughes Inc., the industry’s third-largest oilfield services provider, said Friday the slump in U.S. natural gas activity weighed heavily on its latest quarterly profits. However, the No. 1 oilfield services provider, Schlumberger Ltd., managed to avoid the carnage in North America’s onshore by accelerating activity overseas.

Natural gas duked it out with coal at a record pace in 2Q2012, and third-in-a-row hot summer temperatures helped to knock out more of the gas storage overhang, but the rest of the injection season may turn into a delicate tango between coal displacement and low prices, Barclays Capital energy analysts said Thursday. “Sufficient” displacement may not be achieved unless gas prices average in the mid $2 range in September and October, said analysts Shiyang Wang and Michael Zenker.

Natural gas duked it out with coal at a record pace in 2Q2012, and third-in-a-row hot summer temperatures helped to knock out more of the gas storage overhang, but the rest of the injection season may turn into a delicate tango between coal displacement and low prices, Barclays Capital energy analysts said last week. “Sufficient” displacement may not be achieved unless gas prices average in the mid $2 range in September and October, said analysts Shiyang Wang and Michael Zenker.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has notified Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. that the company has satisfied the terms of a 2010 settlement and may resume hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and completion activities at seven Marcellus Shale natural gas wells in Dimock Township. However, the producer is still barred from drilling new wells in the area.

Hopeful that it is seeing the final months of a moratorium on high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) tick away in New York, Norse Energy Corp. ASA — a company that, like many others, has suffered through years of uncertainty at the hands of the delay — is positioning itself to hit the ground running in the Marcellus and Utica shales.

Enbridge Energy Partners LP (EEP) said Tuesday that for at least the next three years, it plans to rely on rail facilities to transport crude oil from the Bakken Shale and Three Forks formations while it launches long-term plans to expand pipelines in the region.