Northern

Northern Oil and Gas Inc. executives said oil price volatility increased its opportunities for small “ground game” acquisitions in 4Q2018, and plans are to look for bigger prospects in the Williston Basin this year.

FERC has offered new hope for National Fuel Gas Co.’s (NFG) beleaguered Northern Access expansion project, finding in an order late Monday that New York waived its authority to issue a Section 401 water quality certification (WQC) for the pipeline by failing to act within the one-year timeframe required under the U.S. Clean Water Act (CWA).

Northern Oil and Gas Inc. on Thursday clinched an agreement to acquire producing assets and acreage in the core of the Williston Basin in North Dakota, an area of the Bakken Shale it knows well.

Less than two weeks after a federal appeals court in Manhattan declined to force regulators in New York State to issue a water permit for the Constitution Pipeline, supporters of the Northern Access expansion — another embattled project also denied a water permit — told the same court the two cases are not alike and that a different ruling is warranted.

National Fuel Gas Co. (NFG) subsidiaries have have asked a federal court to review the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) decision to deny the Northern Access expansion project a water quality certification and other permits. NFG filed a petition for review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Friday. DEC rejected the project’s permits earlier this month, saying construction would negatively impact the environment. The 490,000 Dth/d Northern Access project would expand the Empire and National Fuel systems to move natural gas from wells in northwest Pennsylvania to markets in New York, Canada, the Northeast and the Midwest.

Marathon Oil Corp. is buying again in the Permian Basin. The company is acquiring about 21,000 net surface acres, largely in the Northern Delaware basin of New Mexico, from Black Mountain Oil & Gas and other private sellers for $700 million in cash.

FERC on Monday granted Northern Natural Gas Co. authorization to construct and operate its Northern Lights 2017 Expansion Project, proposed for Isanti, Sherburne and Rice counties, MN.

Pipeline politics heated up Thursday in Canada when aboriginal groups across the country followed an example from the United States to declare war on the fossil fuel industry in the name of preserving native rights and “Mother Earth.”

Three environmental organizations have asked the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to extend the public comment period on water quality permits for National Fuel Supply Corp.’s Northern Access 2016 pipeline project and related permits for Seneca Resources Corp. shale development.