Executives

Schlumberger Ltd. and Halliburton Co. executives last week expressed concerns about North America’s pressure pumping services market — and not just in natural gas basins. The move by North American land rigs and service capacity from natural gas fields to liquids-rich targets has accelerated, but the pricing weakness first experienced in the gas fields has begun to shift to the liquids plays, said Schlumberger’s CEO.

As the supermajor gets back to business in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) deepwater, one of its core areas, BP plc executives are hopeful that they can complete “in a few days” the $7.8 billion settlement tentatively reached last month with thousands of individuals and businesses that were impacted by the April 2010 Macondo well blowout, Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said Thursday at the company’s annual meeting.

BP plc executives are hopeful that they can complete “in a few days” the $7.8 billion settlement tentatively reached last month with thousands of individuals and businesses that were impacted by the April 2010 Macondo well blowout in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GOM), Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said Thursday at the company’s annual meeting.

Chemical industry executives are believers in the North American shale gas miracle, and they’re investing accordingly. But there’s still time to blow it with bad policies and regulation, speakers at a Houston industry conference said.

Chemical industry executives are believers in the North American shale gas miracle, and they’re investing accordingly. But there’s still time to blow it with bad policies and regulation, speakers at a Houston industry conference said.

The two state chief executives agreed that environmental safeguards are imperative from both the public’s and the industry’s perspective. They offered their views during a keynote panel discussion moderated by the huge annual energy confab’s founder Daniel Yergin, the well-known global energy author/expert.

Gastar Exploration Ltd. has signed a lease with Bayer AG to drill Marcellus Shale gas wells on 1,400 gross acres in New Martinsville, a site that is being touted as a possible location for an ethane cracker in West Virginia.

BP plc has accumulated close to 450,000 net acres in the the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas, executives said Tuesday.

Executives at U.S. Steel Corp. said last week the company has begun to lock in natural gas prices for the year and predicted that demand for the company’s steel tubes, which are used for oil and natural gas drilling, will remain strong in the first quarter.