Functions

Engineering company Curtiss-Wright Corp. said Monday it would pay $135.1 million in cash to acquire Cimarron Energy Inc. to gain entry into the U.S. shale oil and natural gas market.

A federal appeals court in Washington, DC, has rejected a motion by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to dismiss a case brought by independent producers alleging that the agency failed to go through the proper channels to regulate diesel fuel used in the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) process.

In keeping with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s pledge to separate the functions of the agency overseeing activity in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), the department said Friday it has established the Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR) within the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget.

If the futures markets lose one or both of their key functions, price discovery and risk hedging, “the physical hedgers will abandon the futures markets and they will become little more than high-stakes casinos,” a top executive with a global investment firm told a Senate panel Tuesday.

FERC Chairman Pat Wood announced Thursday that the Commission’s auditing divisions have been consolidated within the Office of Market Oversight and Investigations (OMOI).

DukeSolutions entered into an agreement with the Bank of Americayesterday to take over its energy management functions on 4,800properties. The five-year contract will allow the nation’s largestbank to focus on its customers and core business, whileDukeSolutions lowers the company’s annual energy costs.DukeSolutions will provide energy supply information management tothe bank’s numerous properties to help reduce the approximate $110million in annual energy costs.