Drilled

Texaco Inc. has agreed to pay $43 million to settle charges byseveral whistleblowers that the firm underpaid royalties due oncrude oil drilled from federal and Indian leases, The U.S. JusticeDepartment said Wednesday. The settlement covers underpayments fromJanuary 1980 to through December 1998. Two former AtlanticRichfield Co. marketing managers brought the lawsuit in the U.S.District Court in Lufkin, TX, and will receive part of the Texacosettlement. The settlement agreement was signed by representativesof several Indian tribes, as well as the federal government. Thegovernment has reached similar settlements on royalty underpaymentswith Mobil, Occidental Petroleum, Chevron, BP Amoco, Conoco, DevonEnergy, Union Pacific Resources and Sunoco.

After years of litigation over what will be the largest saltcavern storage project in the Northeast, NiSource subsidiary MarketHub Partners (MHP) finally has completed its first cavern well onthe Tioga Gas Storage project in northern Pennsylvania.

After years of litigation over what will be the largest saltcavern storage project in the Northeast, NiSource subsidiary MarketHub Partners (MHP) finally has completed its first cavern well onthe Tioga Gas Storage project in northern Pennsylvania.

PanCanadian Petroleum Ltd. made a gas discovery offshore NovaScotia. In the past year, the company has drilled two explorationwells into geological zones under the Panuke oil field, about 155miles southeast of Halifax. During testing, each well flowed atmore than 50 MMcf/d, the maximum capacity of the testing equipment.The wells, PP-3C and PI-1B, intersected net pay of more than 230feet and 100 feet, respectively.