Held

Record-high natural gas working inventories, which are bulging after mild temperatures held down demand through the winter, have prompted the Energy Information Administration (EIA) to once again revise downward its projection for natural gas prices this year.

Crosstex Energy LP will pay about $210 million to buy privately held pipeline services provider Clearfield Energy Inc., a deal that would significantly expand its crude oil and condensate services in the Utica Shale, the Dallas-based partnership said Tuesday.

Marathon Oil Corp. has agreed to sell nearly all of its natural gas properties in the state for an undisclosed sum to Hilcorp Alaska LLC, a unit of privately held Hilcorp Energy Co. The sale includes an estimated 17 million boe net of proved reserves in 10 fields in which Marathon holds interests in the Cook Inlet. Gas operations include the McArthur River, Ninilchik, Cannery Loop and Kenai Gas units, as well as Beaver Creek, which is an oil and gas development within the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. The sales package also includes natural gas storage and gas pipeline transmission systems. Last year Marathon’s Alaska net production averaged 93 MMcf/d of gas and 112 b/d of oil. The company also had about 12.5 Bcf in storage at the end of 2011. The transaction, with an effective date of Jan. 1, 2012, is set to be completed this fall. Not to be sold is Marathon’s onshore drilling rig, which is being marketed separately.

In an effort to expand its production of olefins, Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LP plans to build a massive 1-hexene plant at its Cedar Bayou Chemical Complex in Baytown, TX.

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. LP (KKR) and affiliates have agreed to pay $306 million to acquire Barnett Shale and Arkoma Basin properties from WPX Energy.

Mitsui Offshore Exploration of Japan, which held a 10% stake in the Macondo well that blew out in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, has paid $90 million to U.S. officials in penalties and environmental restoration fees, making it the first company of those involved in the massive oil spill to settle.

Civility reigned as the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) held a public hearing in Harrisburg, PA, on Thursday to accept comments on 26 pending water withdrawal permits, most of which were submitted by operators in the Marcellus Shale.

Apache Corp. on Thursday disclosed “encouraging” results from an exploratory drilling program in the emerging Whittenburg Basin in the Texas Panhandle, where five of six initial vertical tests were completed as “oil producers” in the Canyon Wash interval.

As TransCanada Corp. pursues various parts of the spurned Keystone XL oil pipeline project, shippers who hold long-term firm contracts equating to 850,000 b/d are continuing to stick with the C$7 billion, 1,700-mile pipeline project, TransCanada CEO Russ Girling told an institutional investment conference in British Columbia (BC) Thursday.