Confident

Energy commodity prices aren’t cooperating in any arena at the moment, but ConocoPhillips is confident that diverting its natural gas rigs to more liquids targets in North America is the right path forward, CEO Ryan Lance said Wednesday.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. CEO Aubrey McClendon said Monday he was confident that the company would complete several planned property sales this year to plug a funding gap estimated at $10 billion.

It is a matter of when, not if, additional testing will be done in Pavillion, WY, where the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has two test wells that turned up suspected chemicals tied to the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) of natural gas wells in the area. Gov. Matt Mead’s spokesperson has confirmed that additional tests are coming, but they are still not scheduled.

Hess Corp. officials said that although production fell in 2011 and the company suffered a net loss in the final quarter, they are confident 2012 will be a better year as they move forward with promising development in North America’s onshore and the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GOM).

The number of permits for horizontal natural gas wells in Ohio’s portion of the Utica and Point Pleasant was on the rise in the closing months of 2011, according to the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

Despite the decision by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) to shut down a wastewater disposal well in Youngstown, industry backers are confident the decision will not have an impact on the emerging oil and gas industry in Ohio’s portions of the Marcellus and Utica shales.

A report by an economics professor at Ohio State University says shale gas development in eastern Ohio will generate jobs, but only a fraction of the total projected by the industry.

Although the full House hasn’t acted on its pipeline safety re-authorization legislation yet, a leading Department of Transportation (DOT) official said she is confident that the bill will clear Congress this year.

A survey conducted by the consulting firm PwC indicates that oil and gas industry executives are confident that their companies’ information security practices will provide protection from cyber attacks, despite poor intelligence of how and when future attacks could be mounted.