Hess

Hess Corp. is selling its retail business, which includes more than 1,300 gasoline stations and convenience stores along the East Coast, to Marathon Petroleum Corp. (MPC) for $2.6 billion as part of its strategy to focus on E&P activities, the company said Thursday.

The growing emphasis on shipping U.S. crude oil production by rail will continue and the oil sector welcomes tougher safety standards now being contemplated by the federal Department of Transportation (DOT), several oil executives said Wednesday during 4Q2013 earnings conference calls.

Analysts say American Energy Partners LP (AEP-LP) is the company buying 74,000 acres in the Utica Shale from Hess Corp., adding that such a move makes sense given AEP-LP’s appetite for assets in the shale play and a simultaneous decision to secure equity commitments.

Hess Corp. plans to spend $5.8 billion on capital expenditures (capex) in 2014, devoting $550 million to production and development projects in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GOM).

Continuing it’s transformation into a pure-play oil and natural gas exploration and production company, Hess Corp. has filed a Form 10 Registration Statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the formation of Hess Retail Corp., a subsidiary containing convenience stores and gasoline refueling stations that the New York-based energy company said it will then seek to sell.

With crude oil production and natural gas flaring on a record-setting pace in the Bakken Shale, North Dakota and industry officials welcomed a new gas pipeline link, but pipelines are only part of the problem.

Two centers backed by major industry leaders opened in September in the heart of the nation’s western oil/gas production areas: a state-of-the-art center for teaching the latest advances in natural gas compression in Oklahoma, and a digital rock physics laboratory in Wyoming.

Gulfport Energy Corp. smashed its natural gas, oil and liquids production records in 2Q2013 with total output at 815,300 boe, with the Utica Shale the outstanding contributor. A year earlier the operator produced a total of 663,300 boe.

With natural gas prices increasing, a joint venture (JV) in the Marcellus Shale has announced plans to build a dry gas pipeline across two neighboring counties in north-central West Virginia.