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Gastar Exploration Ltd. is selling about 76,000 net acres in Kingfisher and Canadian counties in Oklahoma for $62 million and also agreed to swap acreage with the undisclosed buyer so that both might concentrate their positions, the company said Tuesday.

Nova Scotia officials are exploring options to secure a more stable natural gas supply and are issuing a request for proposals (RFP) to examine challenges on price volatility and meeting gas demand now and into the future.

Statoil ASA on Thursday plans to begin delivering its U.S. natural gas produced in the Marcellus Shale to Canada to secure better prices.

Surging shale oil reserves in the United States led BP plc to apparently secure permission, and Royal Dutch Shell plc to apply, for export licenses to ship U.S. crude oil supplies to Canada and possibly elsewhere.

Cash prices overall were down about a nickel on average Friday as traders faced little incentive to secure three days of gas when spot prices could be made during the weekend and seasonal weather forecasts posed little reason to lock-in supplies.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a major environmental group, Wednesday launched a project that would offer communities and towns a helping hand in blocking hydraulic fracturing (fracking). The effort would extend to five states, but the focus would be on Pennsylvania and Ohio, where fracking is most pervasive.

Two and a half million gallons sounds like a lot of water, and producers can use that much and more to stimulate a well with hydraulic fracturing (fracking), but other uses consume a lot more, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson told an audience on the Council on Foreign Relations Wednesday.

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.

North America’s land rig count is expected to be flat this year, with natural gas-directed drilling on the decline while liquids and oil drilling will strengthen, Schlumberger Ltd.’s CEO said Friday.