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In North Dakota where a quarter of the booming oil production in the Bakken Shale play is moved by rail car or truck — not pipeline — North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple Thursday urged the oil and gas industry to beef up the pipeline network in his state to keep up with rapidly growing production. Dalrymple spoke to more than 100 industry and government representatives at the state’s annual pipeline summit in Bismarck.

Oil and natural gas production in North Dakota’s Bakken Shale continued climbing in April, according to a state Industrial Commission preliminary report released Wednesday. A continuing supply glut wreaks havoc on prices for Bakken crude, according to an analysis from RBN Energy LLC.

With rig counts, prices and liquids all moving up, the incidence of natural gas flaring in the Bakken Shale play is expected to continue to decline throughout this year, the head of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, Ron Ness, told NGI’s Shale Daily Wednesday, responding to questions about a report on the state’s record-setting oil/gas operations from the state Department of Mineral Resources (DMR).

Mexico’s state-owned electric utility, Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE), is reportedly seeking bids from private companies to build about 1,460 miles of natural gas pipeline in the northern part of the country.

Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) office in Alaska has issued a call for nominations and comments on tracts for oil and leases to be offered in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A) in November. The notice, which was published in the Federal Register, is subject to a 45-day comment period. This is the second consecutive annual sale that President Obama has directed BLM to hold in the NPR-A. The first NPR-A sale in 2011 generated bids totaling more than $3.6 million (see NGI, Dec. 12, 2011). BLM Alaska said it plans to offer 630 tracts on 7.1 million acres in the upcoming lease lease, which would be more than double what was offered in 2011. The tracts to be auctioned would be within the Northeast and Northwest Planning Areas of the NPR-A, according to the notice. The U.S. Geological Survey in 2010 estimated that the NPR-A, which covers 22.8 million acres on Alaska’s North Slope, holds approximately 896 million bbl of oil and 53 Tcf of natural gas. Both figures were below what the agency estimated in 2002. BLM Alaska said it must receive all nominations and comments on the tracts for consideration by June 29. The nominations and/or comments should be sent to the State Director, Bureau of Land Management, Alaska State Office, 222 West 7th Ave., Mailstop 13, Anchorage, AK 99513-7504. For further information, contact Deputy State Director Ted Murphy at (907) 271-4413.

Production of oil, natural gas and condensate from the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas increased dramatically from 2010 to 2011, according to a new study of the play and its impact on the region. And there’s more to come, thanks in large part to the attractive economics offered by the Eagle Ford’s oil and liquids-rich gas.

The majority of Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale drilling law is just starting to go into effect, but two state lawmakers are already proposing tweaks, one small and one large.

Two separate decisions in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York came down mostly on the side of shale play giant Chesapeake Energy Corp. in a year-old dispute over the extension of leases from landowners at below-market prices. Landowners in parts of four counties in New York state’s portion of the Marcellus Shale filed lawsuits against the Oklahoma-based shale operator.

Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy Corp. eschewed all talk on Wednesday that its North American onshore properties are anything but stellar by announcing a $1 billion increase to the 2012 capital spending budget, with nearly all of the money to be focused on exploration efforts in the company’s in-house unconventional portfolio.