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Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality’s (DEQ) Air Quality Division (AQD) Administrator Steve Dietrich on Monday reinforced the state’s intention this spring to increase its program for compliance checks of oil and natural gas production facility engines.

Dry gas player Southwestern Energy Co. is having “success in a low gas-price environment,” not just surviving, said CEO Steve Mueller.

It won’t happen this year, but starting in 2014 there should be a sharp increase in oil production in California, according to Occidental Petroleum Corp. (Oxy) CEO Steve Chazen, speaking last Thursday on a year-end quarterly earnings conference call.

For Apache Corp., whose drilling operations ramped up in 1955 in the Cushing field of Oklahoma, home is now the sweetest place to be, CEO Steve Farris said Thursday.

The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) has named Steve Berberich as its new CEO, replacing Yakout Mansour, who retired recently after a six-year stint heading the state grid operator. A former executive with Dallas-based TXU, Berberich joined CAISO in 2005 and has served since 2010 as COO at CAISO’s Folsom, CA headquarters. Keith Casey had served as interim CEO since Mansour left CAISO.

Apache Corp. CEO Steve Farris last week credited the company’s portfolio and employees for helping achieve record oil-equivalent production and the third-highest quarter for earnings during 1Q2011, and he predicted that exploration would grow in Oklahoma and Texas.

Two big-ticket acquisitions in the Fayetteville Shale by BHP Billiton Petroleum and XTO Energy Inc. suggest that the pace of development in the play will be accelerating, acknowledged Steve Mueller, CEO of Fayetteville veteran Southwestern Energy Co. But his company can hold its own, having locked in some of its costs and beaten down drilling times, Mueller said.

Bellevue, WA-based Puget Sound Energy (PSE) has named Kimberly Harris as its new CEO, replacing Steve Reynolds who retired. Harris joined PSE 12 years ago.

Two big-ticket acquisitions in the Fayetteville Shale by BHP Billiton Petroleum and XTO Energy Inc. suggest that the pace of development in the play will be accelerating, acknowledged Steve Mueller, CEO of Fayetteville veteran Southwestern Energy Co. But his company can hold its own, having locked in some of its costs and beaten down drilling times, Mueller said.