Shortly

Shortly after the company unveiled its staggering quarterly earnings report last week, ExxonMobil Corp. launched a media blitz, accusing the White House and members of Congress of playing politics in their zeal to repeal annual tax incentives for the oil and gas industry. Chevron Corp. executives on Friday also weighed in.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with input from the departments of Interior and Energy, industry and the states, is expected “very shortly” to issue guidance to oil and natural gas producers on the use of diesel in hydraulic fracturing (fracking), said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson Tuesday.

Carol M. Browner, the White House czar on energy and climate change, is expected to leave her position shortly, ending two years with the Obama administration (see Daily GPI, Dec. 12, 2008).

Montreal-based producer Gastem Inc. said Thursday its Ross No.1 vertical well in the New York portion of the Marcellus Shale has been completed and is testing 150 MMcf/d after four weeks of “extended flow.”

Oasis Pipeline, an intrastate system owned and operated by Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), ruptured shortly before 7 a.m. CDT Wednesday near Bellville, TX, about 50 miles northwest of Houston. The affected pipe is 36 inches in diameter.

Baker Hughes Inc. struck a cash-and-stock deal valued at $5.5 billion shortly after midnight Monday to acquire shale fracturing expert BJ Services Co., in the largest oilfield services acquisition in more than a decade.

Shortly after gaining FERC approval Transwestern Pipeline Co. LLC last Monday placed the second and final phase of its Phoenix Expansion Project in service. This part of the project includes all of the facilities in Arizona: the 280-mile Phoenix Lateral, modifications at the Seligman Compressor Station, the Ash Fork facility, customer laterals, meter stations and associated facilities.

A third attack on EnCana Corp. natural gas facilities in the Dawson Creek, BC, area resulted in a gas leak that was discovered Oct. 31 and repaired shortly after, the company said. The leak, which was sealed the evening of Nov. 2 by cement injection into the well, is in an area where EnCana facilities were targeted by vandals in two incidents last month.

The Supreme Court Monday declined to review lower court rulings that vacated the conviction of Enron founder Kenneth Lay for fraud and conspiracy shortly after his death last July.