Strategic

Better known just a few years ago as a deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GOM) force, Noble Energy Inc. has made some strategic moves in the past few years that have transformed the company and prepared it for double-digit production growth for up to a decade, CEO Chuck Davidson told investors Tuesday.

Even though its home country of France has nixed shale gas and oil exploration, Paris-based Total will continue to seek unconventional resources, a spokesman told NGI’s Shale Daily. Total sees gas as a major player on the world’s energy stage over the next 20 years.

The EXCO Resources Inc. board of directors is ending its bid to sell the company.

A researcher with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) cautioned the U.S. Secretary of Energy Advisory Board’s (SEAB) Natural Gas Subcommittee that regulation and enforcement of shale gas was of paramount importance if the industry’s full potential is to become a reality.

A researcher with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) cautioned the U.S. Secretary of Energy Advisory Board’s (SEAB) Natural Gas Subcommittee that regulation and enforcement of shale gas was of paramount importance if the industry’s full potential is to become a reality.

With its own strategic business interest at stake, Seal Beach, CA-based Clean Energy Fuels Inc. attempted to make the case Friday for American business supporting national legislation to help boost the use of natural gas as a transportation fuel. Clean Energy’s founder, T. Boone Pickens, is a big backer of the proposed legislation known as NAT GAS Act (see Daily GPI, April 21).

Russia’s OAO Rosneft apparently no longer is considering BP plc as a partner for its planned Arctic development. The strategic alliance had included an Arctic exploration joint venture as well as a stock swap (see NGI, Jan. 17) BP’s current Russian partner TNK-BP objected and legally blocked the alliance (see NGI, May 30). BP CEO Bob Dudley, who had helped craft the proposed alliance, said the company was “moving on,” readying the launch of 30 global projects by the end of 2016 and returning to work in the Gulf of Mexico.

Russia’s OAO Rosneft no longer is considering BP plc as a partner for its planned Arctic development, the company’s CEO said Friday.

OAO Rosneft has given BP plc until Monday (May 16) to negotiate an acceptable alternative to their historic share swap agreement announced in January. The “groundbreaking strategic alliance” to explore Russia’s largely unexplored Arctic region, considered key to BP CEO Bob Dudley’s plan to right the company, would give state-controlled Rosneft around 5% of BP’s ordinary voting shares in exchange for BP receiving 9.5% of Rosneft shares (see NGI, Jan. 17). However, BP already had joint venture (JV) exploration agreements with Alfa-Access-Renova (AAR), a Russian oligarch consortium, in TNK-BP. The group of Russian billionaires disputed the Rosneft alliance, and in March an arbitration tribunal extended an injunction of the agreement (see NGI, March 28). AAR in essence won its case before the tribunal, which said it would allow BP to move forward with the Rosneft share swap only if it agreed to cede its Arctic JV to TNK-BP.