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As was expected, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman on Tuesday signed into law a measure allowing the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality (NDEQ) to resume its review and oversight of an alternate route for the northern portion of the Keystone XL oil pipeline project. It is effective Wednesday.

Opponents of TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline accused Nebraska legislators Wednesday of bowing to the Alberta-based pipeline company’s interests after the lawmakers solidly approved legislation 44-5 to allow the pipeline to traverse the state.

While its investments with Chesapeake Energy Corp. in Barnett and Utica shale gas and oil plays have been widely publicized, Paris-based Total SA also is quietly investing in a major research and development (R&D) project looking at in-ground ways to develop oil shale, an unrealized dream of energy independence that the industry and some policymakers have flirted with for decades.

It was still cold along the East Coast Wednesday, with some cities in Florida having established date-specific records for low temperatures the day before. But forecasts of widespread warming trends either already getting under way or starting Thursday caused prices to plummet by triple digits at quite a few Northeast trading points. Outside the Northeast, the market was close to evenly divided between small gains and small losses.

Former Petrohawk Energy Corp. CEO Floyd C. Wilson, who recently created Halcon Resources LLC, is working with a group of investors to buy Tulsa-based Ram Energy Resources Inc., a small-cap explorer that operates primarily in Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma.

Pennsylvania issued its 3,000th Marcellus Shale drilling permit of the year in November, but the final well count for 2011 is likely to fall just shy of 2,000, if drilling remains at its current pace.

Nexen Inc. has made good on a promise to find a joint venture (JV) partner by the end of this year for its extensive shale acreage in northeastern British Columbia (BC) after agreeing to sell a 40% stake for C$700 million to a consortium led by Japan’s Inpex Corp.

In the environmental debates raging around natural gas and oil drilling in North America, one thing until now has not been in dispute: it takes huge amounts of water to open up reservoir fractures deep underground. However, new technologies developed in Canada, which have been tested in the United States, may offer the energy industry a waterless way forward.

After relying entirely on pipeline deliveries into the United States to date, Canadian exporters received the green light Thursday to break into overseas markets for liquefied natural gas (LNG).