Challenging

Last year proved challenging for the North American oilfield sector, as operators moved rigs from natural gas to more lucrative liquids targets and an overcapacity in pressure pumping continued to impact margins. This year won’t be much better, Halliburton Co.’s management team said Friday.

Environmentalists have filed a lawsuit in Washington, DC, challenging the Interior Department’s final 2012-2017 plan for Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) oil and natural gas leasing, which focuses primarily on the the Gulf of Mexico and potentially offshore areas in Alaska.

Four trade associations last Tuesday filed a lawsuit challenging a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rule requiring publicly traded domestic oil and natural gas producers to disclose to the public commercially sensitive information that could put them at a major disadvantage with foreign-owned energy companies.

Four trade associations Tuesday filed a lawsuit challenging a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rule requiring publicly traded domestic oil and natural gas producers to disclose to the public commercially sensitive information that could put them at a major disadvantage with foreign-owned energy companies.

International bankers have “temporarily prevailed” on the lawsuit challenging the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) rule limiting speculative trading in commodity derivatives, but the “struggle isn’t over,” CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton vowed last Tuesday as trading exchanges backed off their previous plans of altering their own position limit rules.

International bankers have “temporarily prevailed” on the lawsuit challenging the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) rule limiting speculative trading in commodity derivatives, but the “struggle isn’t over,” said CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton Tuesday.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans has ruled against Chesapeake Energy Corp. in its bid to reverse a $19.7 million judgment over a canceled oil and gas lease offer in Texas, a decision that may hold implications on canceled lease claims by mineral rights owners in several other states.

An attorney representing a Pennsylvania township that is challenging Act 13, the omnibus Marcellus Shale law, said the state Public Utility Commission (PUC) has no authority to review local drilling ordinances, and accused the agency of acting with “malicious intent” by doing so.

Five conservation groups on Monday filed a lawsuit challenging the Department of Interior’s plans to hold a Central Gulf of Mexico (GOM) lease sale in New Orleans on Wednesday, claiming the Obama administration has failed to address the risks to wildlife and the environment following the Macondo deepwater well blowout two years ago.