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The coming spring could rank among the top-ten warmest on record, but that warmth isn’t expected to be as widespread or as extreme as last year, according to AccuWeather.com’s long-range forecast team.

The seemingly unrelenting growth in natural gas use in Asia-Pacific nations could have global implications for gas pricing that heretofore has varied greatly between the East and the West, two Singapore-based energy attorneys said during an energy conference Tuesday.

Two major metropolitan transit operators in Southern California could add more than 1,000 compressed natural gas (CNG) buses from Toronto-based New Flyer Industries during 2013. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority is slated to add the bulk of the new CNG-powered buses. It has issued a letter of intent to award a contract worth a reported $302.9 million for 550 New Flyer buses, with an option to increase that to 900. Meanwhile, the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System is purchasing up to 165 new CNG buses from New Flyer, the 60-foot Xcelsior articulated heavy duty models. The firm order is for 47 of the buses with options for up to 118 more, according to fleet industry reports.

A trio of New York legislators opposed to high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) held court over a lengthy public hearing Thursday on rules that would govern the practice, but officials with the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) were not in attendance.

Summit Investments has agreed to acquire Bear Tracker Energy LLC for $513 million from affiliates of GSO Capital Partners LP and Bear Tracker Investments LLC. Midstream company Bear Tracker is focused on oil and natural gas in North Dakota and Colorado.

Colorado on Monday established new mandatory water sampling requirements for oil and natural gas drilling drawing criticism from industry and environmental groups. Sampling of multiple water wells before and after drilling is now required.

A subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell plc has been given another six months to decide whether to purchase property in western Pennsylvania for a proposed “world scale” ethane cracker in the heart of the Marcellus Shale.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued an interim update of 18 studies that have been undertaken in its multi-year review of the potential risks of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) of shale gas wells on public drinking water.

Economic contributions from unconventional development mostly are driven by the 16 states with oil and natural gas production, but a “significant portion” comes from states with no production, according to a state-by-state analysis by IHS Inc.