Record

National Oilwell Varco Inc. (NOV), the largest oilfield equipment supplier in North America, beat profit forecasts in 3Q2012 on solid demand in the deepwater and overseas, but the U.S. land drilling market has stalled, executives said Thursday.

Colorado’s Air Quality Control Commission voted to partially adopt federal clean air rules that target hydraulic fracturing (fracking) emissions and hold public meetings next year to consider full implementation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules.

Given the state of natural gas liquids (NGL) markets, it should come as no surprise that U.S. propane inventories (including propylene stocks) hit a record high at the end of September while the average weekly spot price at Mont Belvieu, TX, hit a low not seen since the third quarter of 2009, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Inflated by production from the nation’s burgeoning shale plays, total gross withdrawals of domestic natural gas jumped to 28.58 Tcf in 2011, a 6.5% increase from 26.84 Tcf in 2010, and are on pace to easily surpass those numbers again this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Monthly Energy Review for September.

Independent oil and natural gas producers Monday called on the Obama administration to meet with them face-to-face to discuss their concerns with the federal government’s proposed rule on hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

Natural gas duked it out with coal at a record pace in 2Q2012, and third-in-a-row hot summer temperatures helped to knock out more of the gas storage overhang, but the rest of the injection season may turn into a delicate tango between coal displacement and low prices, Barclays Capital energy analysts said Thursday. “Sufficient” displacement may not be achieved unless gas prices average in the mid $2 range in September and October, said analysts Shiyang Wang and Michael Zenker.

Natural gas duked it out with coal at a record pace in 2Q2012, and third-in-a-row hot summer temperatures helped to knock out more of the gas storage overhang, but the rest of the injection season may turn into a delicate tango between coal displacement and low prices, Barclays Capital energy analysts said last week. “Sufficient” displacement may not be achieved unless gas prices average in the mid $2 range in September and October, said analysts Shiyang Wang and Michael Zenker.

Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s U.S.-focused natural gas production is forecast to drop by 7% in 2013, bringing “to an end our likely unprecedented public company record of 23 consecutive years of gas production growth,” CEO Aubrey McClendon said during an earnings conference call last week.

Driven primarily by continuing record oil production from the Bakken Shale formation, North Dakota’s economy is booming and is on target to produce more than $3.5 billion in tax revenues by the end of the state’s current two-year (2011-2013) fiscal year budget period, according to the state tax commissioner.