Oklahoma

Oklahoma City, OK-based Kerr-McGee Corp. said Tuesday it has promoted Terence Jupp to vice president of international exploration and production, Frank Patterson to vice president of exploration and technology and Greg Jewell to director of Gulf of Mexico exploration. Jupp will be responsible for managing Kerr-McGee’s development, production and execution of the exploration program in international hydrocarbon basins, including China, Brazil, West Africa, Trinidad and Tobago and Australia along with the North Slope of Alaska. Patterson will manage Kerr-McGee’s worldwide exploration program. His responsibilities include exploration strategy, planning, investment allocation and technology. Jewell will manage Kerr-McGee’s exploration efforts in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. These efforts include prospect and play generation and evaluation, lease sale participation and partner relations.

Northern Natural Gas has requested FERC authorization to sell its West Hugoton natural gas pipeline facilities in Kansas and Oklahoma to a Midland, TX-based energy company.

A citizens group has asked FERC to reject two LNG receiving terminal sites in Maine proposed by Oklahoma-based Quoddy Bay LLC and Downeast LNG for Maine, saying the planned facilities demonstrate “fatally-deficient” siting.

El Paso Corp. has agreed to pay $30 million to settle claims that it allegedly underpaid royalties for production from natural gas wells in Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico, according to the company’s annual 10-K report that was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday.

Shippers of Northern Natural Gas Co. have attacked the pipeline’s proposal to sell 419 miles of pipeline facilities and compression assets in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas to Duke Energy Field Services LP (DEFS), and to reclassify the transmission facilities as non-jurisdictional gathering following the spin-off.

Shippers of Northern Natural Gas Co. have attacked the pipeline’s proposal to sell 419 miles of pipe facilities and compression assets in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas to Duke Energy Field Services LP. (DEFS), and to reclassify the transmission facilities as non-jurisdictional gathering following the spin-off.

Oklahoma-based Quoddy Bay LLC said it has initiated the environmental pre-filing process at FERC for its proposed $500 million LNG import terminal, which would be located at Split Rock, ME, on the Sipayik reservation of the Passamaquoddy Tribe in Washington County.

Oklahoma City-based Kerr-McGee Corp., which moved this year to become a pure-play oil and natural gas producer, said Thursday its onshore exploration in 2006 will focus on two large resource plays in the Rocky Mountains, the Wattenberg area in Colorado and the Greater Natural Buttes project in the Uinta Basin of Utah, and it will continue to expand its deepwater projects in the Gulf of Mexico. Overall, the independent expects to spend $1.3 billion on capital expenditures, with $300 million set aside for exploration.

This year’s devastating storms led Devon Energy Corp. to lower its oil and natural gas production outlook for the year, but the Oklahoma City-based producer increased its estimate of proven oil and natural gas reserves.