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President Obama’s fiscal 2013 budgets for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of Energy (DOE) and Department of Interior (DOI) propose funding directed at assessing the impact of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) of shale.

The natural gas market may be in a “dire state,” but Tulsa-based contract driller Helmerich & Payne Inc. is poised to benefit as customers migrate to oil and liquids-rich shale plays where its high-performance AC-drive rigs are well suited to the more complicated work, CEO Hans Helmerich said Tuesday.

Natural gas prices were a mixed bag on Tuesday with mild weather and tumbling prices in the Northeast offset by nominal gains in other most other regions as traders grappled with the combination of stronger futures prices and a winter storm lashing the Great Plains.

The Barnett Shale and Horn River Basin lifted Fort Worth-based Quicksilver Resources Inc. to a quarterly production record during the third quarter while the company continued to chip away at its substantial debt.

Arrival of some heating load fails to offset recognition of generally weak weather fundamentals.

Reality suggests that even with a “modest” decline in the U.S. natural gas rig count in 2012, structural drivers should “more than offset” the drop and gas supply growth even may accelerate over the coming year, the energy team with Raymond James & Associates Inc. said last week.

Reality suggests that even with a “modest” decline in the U.S. natural gas rig count in 2012, structural drivers should “more than offset” the drop and gas supply growth even may accelerate over the coming year, the energy team with Raymond James & Associates Inc. said late Monday.

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.

Officials with the City of Morgantown, WV, said the city might take Northeast Natural Energy (NNE) to court if the city passes an ordinance banning hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking) and the company subsequently starts using the practice at two Marcellus Shale gas wells.