Commodity

Given current commodity prices, natural gas wells drilled in the Marcellus Shale — wet or dry — compete favorably with marginal Bakken Shale oil wells, but that’s the only gas play in the U.S. onshore that today can compete with Bakken oil well economics, according to an analysis by Barclays Capital.

The chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Tuesday called on a Senate panel to support President Obama’s request for additional funds for the agency in fiscal year (FY) 2014 so that it can protect the derivatives and futures markets from fraud, manipulation and other abusive practices.

The Kentucky Oil and Gas Association’s (KOGA) first comprehensive research of the economic impact of the oil and gas industry found that the state had 14,632 producing natural gas wells in 2011 and produced more than 3 million bbl of oil in 2012, but the number of horizontal well permits issued has declined each year since 2009.

A U.S. District Court judge in Washington, DC, on Friday dismissed Bloomberg LP’s challenge of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Dodd-Frank regulations on the multi-trillion over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market.

Expressing “alarm” that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is not registering all swap dealers that are active in energy markets, six prominent West Coast senators said they are “increasingly concerned” that the $8 billion annual de minimis threshold exemption in the agency’s Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act rules may allow the vast majority of the energy swap market to fly under the regulator’s radar.

Expressing “alarm” that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is not registering all swap dealers that are active in energy markets, six prominent senators from the West Coast said they were “increasingly concerned” that the $8 billion annual de minimis threshold exemption in the agency’s Dodd-Frank rules may allow the vast majority of the energy swap market to fly under the regulator’s radar.

U.S. financial markets “took a step closer…to enhanced transparency,” Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler said Thursday after the Commission voted out final rules covering the vast swap transactions market.

U.S. financial markets “took a step closer today to enhanced transparency,” Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler said Thursday after the Commission voted out final rules covering the vast swap transactions market.

Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing has powered the biggest increase since the 1970s in Alberta oil production from flowing wells outside the northern bitumen sands belt, says the provincial Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB).