Equal

ExxonMobil Corp.’s profits climbed 6% year/year in 4Q2012, with annual earnings jumping 9%, despite a steep fall-off in global natural gas and oil production, the supermajor reported on Friday. Until natural gas prices are revived, the producer will direct most of North American unconventional spending on liquids and oil, the investor relations chief said Friday.

As power generators turn increasingly from coal to natural gas, it’s not just gas producers that benefit. Pipelines get a lift, too.

As power generators turn increasingly from coal to natural gas, it’s not just gas producers that benefit. Pipelines get a lift, too.

ExxonMobil Corp. has offered US$3.14 billion in a cash and debt deal to buy Celtic Exploration Ltd., a Calgary producer with a rich array of unconventional acreage spread across the Montney and Duvernay shales, as well as leaseholds in other formations in Alberta (AB) and British Columbia (BC). The offer that was announced on Wednesday has a cash value of about $2.6 billion, excluding debt.

Last year saw a transformation at Houston-based Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. as the company shifted from deriving its revenue mostly from natural gas to an equal reliance upon revenue from oil production, CEO Chip Johnson told financial analysts Tuesday. “We expect this trend to continue for the entire year of 2012 as we become increasingly weighted toward oil production,” he said.

ExxonMobil Corp.’s oil and gas production volumes had languished before 2010, often in the single digits, as the oil major failed to build a resource base to equal its massive profits. However, that changed last year with the purchase of U.S. shale king XTO Energy Inc. and was proved Thursday when ExxonMobil said its quarterly volumes were up 10% from a year ago.

ExxonMobil Corp.’s oil and gas production volumes had languished before 2010, often in the single digits as the oil major failed to build a resource base to equal its profits. However, that changed last year with the purchase of U.S. shale king XTO Energy Inc. and was proved Thursday when ExxonMobil said its quarterly volumes were up 10% from a year ago.

Rockies Express Pipeline LLC (REX) has asked FERC to reconsider a recent order that removed restrictions so that customers of a new mainline displacement-only backhaul service may use secondary points to make forward-hauls.

While others have touted U.S. shale gas potential as equivalent to two Saudi Arabias, the western United States by itself could equal one, according to a report released earlier this month by an oil and natural gas advocacy group, Denver-based Western Energy Alliance. It contends that resources in the West could exceed today’s major U.S. energy imports by 2020.