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Encana Corp. is hunkering down with a reduced spending plan for 2012 in dry natural gas plays and shifting more investments to liquids and oil-prone unconventionals in North America, CEO Randy Eresman said Wednesday.

The Alberta Energy Ministry said it has sold a record C$2.68 billion in drilling rights so far this year, eclipsing the previous record of C$2.39 billion set in 2010.

Shell Canada Ltd. is looking for a partner to help develop its gassy Chinook leasehold, 102,000 acres in the Nikanassin Formation, a shale play in the Deep Basin of Western Canada.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn on Wednesday signed legislation to help create the state’s first coal gasification plant, which is expected to reduce carbon emissions and create 1,500 jobs.

Wyoming reported receiving a $10.4 million grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to help support Gov. Matt Mead’s sage grouse protection executive order issued earlier this year. The funding is in addition to $17 million the state has already received for conserving sage grouse from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. Emphasizing that the program is voluntary, the state head of the implementation team said the USFWS funds will be used to deal with sage grouse habitat fragmentation.

With a wee bit of help from prior-day screen firmness, gradually growing demand for power generation gas supplies to keep air conditioners running caused most cash market locations to realize substantive increases Tuesday. Even though odds of a Bay of Campeche low-pressure area becoming a named tropical storm didn’t get raised to 90% until well into the afternoon, just the chance of that happening so early in hurricane season may have been a modestly bullish factor to some traders.

Continued growth in the U.S. and Canadian onshore unconventional businesses will help to offset disappointing performances in 2Q2011 from the pressure pumping, U.S. offshore and international units, Nabors Industries Ltd. CEO Gene Isenberg said Monday.

The Republican-controlled Ohio Senate passed Substitute HB 133 by a 22-10 vote on Wednesday. The measure creates a five-member Oil and Gas Leasing Commission (OGLC) and opens land owned by the state — including state parks but not nature preserves — to oil and gas leasing.

Calgary-based Progress Energy Resources Corp.’s chief executive said Thursday the company has found a “critical” partner to help market its natural gas in the Montney Shale of British Columbia after securing Malaysia’s national oil company Petronas (Petroliam Nasional Berhad) in a joint venture (JV) valued at about C$1.07 billion.