Programs

BP plc is attempting to oust the controversial court-appointed claims administrator of the Macondo oil spill program.

Denver-based SM Energy Co. raised its production guidance for 2014 in spite of an anticipated hiccup in the company’s Eagle Ford Shale operations during the third quarter. The company also will be spending more than planned earlier.

Eleven oil and gas trade associations have signed a letter urging the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to make new areas of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, as well as the eastern Gulf of Mexico (GOM), available for leasing.

The safeguards enacted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and state regulators to protect underground sources of drinking water from contamination by Class II injection wells don’t adequately address emerging threats like seismic activity, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said.

Seeking to shore up the United States’s ability to protect against a cyber attack on government, industry or energy infrastructure, Bechtel on Monday unveiled a program with two U.S. national security laboratories to fund multiyear positions for early-career professionals in critical cybersecurity fields.

The Department of Interior on Friday took the initial step to develop the next schedule of potential offshore oil and natural gas lease sales from 2017-2022, a multi-year process to evaluate all of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) planning areas.

Pennsylvania has a “well managed” and professional” regulatory program for oil and gas operations in the state, but should make four specific changes to how it regulates hydraulic fracturing (fracking), according to a report by the nonprofit State Review of Oil and Natural Gas Environmental Regulations Inc. (Stronger).

Noting that the state’s climate change mediation goals call for investing billions of dollars in energy efficiency, California regulators on Thursday approved $65.9 million to conduct five pilot energy efficiency programs using utility ratepayer-supported financial mechanisms. Pilot programs will be phased in beginning in the fourth quarter.

To support rapidly expanding drilling programs in the Utica Shale’s southern core, MarkWest Utica EMG LLC on Friday agreed to construct a third 200 MMcf/d cryogenic natural gas processor at the Seneca complex in Noble County, OH.