NYMEX

Oil production on North Dakota’s Fort Berthold Indian Reservation has become a significant part of the nation’s second largest oil-producing state, and tribal leaders are touting the reservation’s output as among the top 10 oil producing states in the nation.

More North American land drillers have resumed buying equipment for drilling and fracturing (fracking), in part to secure the state-of-the-art technology and in part because unconventional prospects are chewing up drillbits and pressure pumpers, National Oilwell Varco Inc. (NOV) CEO Clay Williams said Monday.

Long targeted by conventional drillers in the Appalachian Basin, the Upper Devonian Shale formations have been known for some time to hold a cache of dry natural gas. But new technologies, combined with more than a year of close analysis have shown unconventional operators that those six layers of source rock can’t be overlooked.

Texas oil and gas producers turned in another month of production growth in February, according to preliminary data from the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC). Both oil and gas production were up from a year ago. March oil well completions were up sharply from a year ago, but gas well completions declined.

When the natural gas industry looks back on the winter of 2013-14, it will remember a number of extremes — the polar vortex, price spikes, a propane shortage, frozen wells shut in, very tight gas supplies and lingering concerns about replenishing gas storage.

Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI) is dropping down to master limited partnership (MLP) El Paso Pipeline Partners LP (EPB) its 50% stakes in Ruby Pipeline and Gulf LNG and 47.5% interest in Young Gas Storage in a deal worth $2 billion including debt at Ruby and Gulf LNG.

Nine months after being confirmed to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Gina McCarthy took aim at critics that claim the agency relies on “secret science,” and promised it would deliver its contribution to President Obama’s Climate Action Plan.

The best financed explorers in North America — ExxonMobil Corp., BP plc, Chevron Corp., Royal Dutch Shell plc and ConocoPhillips — present their earnings results this week, with speculation about whether natural gas development will return to the agenda in a bigger way this year, with storage at record lows and more export projects drawing overseas contracts.

The spot natural gas market was hit with a double whammy in Monday’s trading as temperatures were forecast to drop to as much as 15 degrees below normal at major eastern points, and the expired May futures surged higher.