Brought

Adding to its already significant holdings in the Permian Basin of West Texas and southern New Mexico, Concho Resources Inc. on Monday agreed to acquire all the oil and natural gas assets of Three Rivers Operating Co. and affiliated entities for $1 billion in cash.

Cardinal Midstream LLC has brought a third cryogenic gas processing plant online in the Arkoma Woodford Shale, and it now has 220 MMcf/d of operated cryogenic processing capacity in the Oklahoma play. The new Tupelo Plant in Coal County, OK, is capable of processing 120 MMcf/d. Cardinal’s Coalgate Plant, an 80 MMcf/d facility, is adjacent to Tupelo, and the Atoka Plant in Atoka County, has a capacity of 20 MMcf/d. Cardinal Midstream President R. Mack Lawrence said the company was expanding its gathering system and “evaluating further processing capacity expansions given the level of drilling activity on dedicated acreage and the quality and production volume we’re seeing from the rich gas wells in the play.”

Energy Transfer Equity LP (ETE) brought Southern Union Co. (SUG) under the ETE banner on Monday, completing a mega merger that creates a midstream powerhouse with more than 44,000 miles of interstate natural gas pipelines and an estimated 30.7 Bcf/d of transportation capacity.

With new liquids-rich properties in pocket, Linn Energy LLC said Monday it plans to spend $880 million in capital expenditures (capex) in 2012, with more than half allocated to the unconventional Granite Wash formation in Texas.

A healthy slice of Marathon Oil Corp.’s $4.8 billion capital, investment and exploration budget for next year is targeted at the Eagle Ford Shale play in South Texas as the company continues to focus on liquids-rich assets in the United States.

A La Nina event off the west coast of South America, which brought brutally cold and snowy weather to a large part of the country last winter, is expected to again influence conditions this winter, prompting especially harsh temperatures and snowfall across the Midwest and Great Lakes region, while the Northeast can expect winter 2011-2012 to be somewhat less extreme than last year, according to forecasters at AccuWeather.com.

A La Nina event off the west coast of South America, which brought brutally cold and snowy weather to a large part of the country last winter, is expected to again influence conditions this winter, prompting especially harsh temperatures and snowfall across the Midwest and Great Lakes region, while the Northeast can expect winter 2011-2012 to be somewhat less extreme than last year, according to forecasters at AccuWeather.com.

The Pennsylvania governor who led the state through the first years of the Marcellus Shale boom said the natural gas industry has “screwed up so badly” that it brought a tide of negative public opinion on itself.

North America’s abundant natural gas resources have begun to weaken Russia’s influence on Europe’s energy supplies and could counter Iran’s influence as an energy supplier, according to research by the Baker Institute Energy Forum at Rice University.