Driver

Growing producer demand for well services to support development of North American shale natural gas plays is a main driver behind GE’s planned acquisition of the well support division of John Wood Group plc for $2.8 billion, the company said.

The strength of U.S. shale plays was a key driver for increased merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in 2010, and will continue to fuel the industry’s movement towards upstream assets, according to a report issued by PricewaterhouseCoopers USA (PwC).

The strength of U.S. shale plays was a key driver for increased merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in 2010, and will continue to fuel the industry’s movement toward upstream assets, according to a report issued by PricewaterhouseCoopers USA (PwC).

Natural gas bulls thought they were in the driver’s seat as just prior to the opening of Monday’s floor trading January futures traded as high as $4.547, a stout 13 cent rise relative to Friday’s settlement.

Natural gas futures bears were still very much in the driver’s seat after the November futures contract on Friday recorded the fourth new low for the downtrend, just in the past week. The front-month contract recorded a low of $3.290 before closing the regular session at $3.332, down 3.6 cents from Thursday and 20.3 cents lower than the previous week’s finish.

More than 242,000 acres in the Vermillion Basin region of northwestern Colorado, considered to hold huge amounts of natural gas, would be off limits to drillers under a proposed Resource Management Plan (RMP), the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) said last week.

In the long run — beyond 2010 — oil and natural gas prices should return to parity on a global basis, but the “most important and timely driver” will be the build-out of a global liquefied natural gas (LNG) infrastructure, Raymond James & Associates Inc. energy analysts said. They warned in the short term: “beware North American gas names in 2008.”

In the long run — beyond 2010 — oil and natural gas prices should return to parity on a global basis, but the “most important and timely driver” will be the build-out of a global liquefied natural gas (LNG) infrastructure, Raymond James & Associates Inc. energy analysts said. They warned in the short term: “beware North American gas names in 2008.”

The driver of a bulldozer working on the Rockies Express pipeline was killed Saturday at 9:30 a.m. when the bulldozer apparently hit El Paso Corp.’s Wyoming Interstate Co. (WIC) pipeline about 10 miles south-southwest of Cheyenne, WY, causing an explosion. The rupture of the large diameter pipe, which was in a very remote area of ranch land, led to a massive fireball that rose hundreds of feet in the air. The fire was extinguished Saturday afternoon.