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The Pennsylvania Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments this week in a controversial mineral rights case that could have enormous implications over ownership rights in the Marcellus Shale.

A coalition of grassroots organizations in Ohio has started a campaign to restore local governments’ ability to regulate oil and natural gas drilling, a “home rule” power that could potentially be used by opponents of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to ban the practice in their communities.

Fort Worth, TX-based Quicksilver Resources Inc. provided an operational update on its recently completed well in the Delaware Basin in West Texas and the completion of an eight-well pad in the Horn River Basin in British Columbia (BC).

A recent analysis of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) data from fracfocus.org and oil and gas well records from eight states, which concluded that nearly half of the wells fracked during the last nine months of 2011 were not disclosed on the website, doesn’t tell the whole story, according to industry sources. The industry supports the disclosure website and continues to flood it with well data, they said.

The pace of development in the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas is fast and steady, yet “the [stock] market continues to not appreciate the statistical and predictable nature of the learning curve” in the play, said analysts at FBR Capital Markets. They noted that in other shale plays, more wells have equaled greater knowledge, which has yielded predictable productivity gains.

With an experienced team in place and more than $2 billion at its disposal, Tenaska Capital Management LLC (TCM) has plans to acquire and develop U.S. midstream natural gas assets. High on its priority list: emerging shale basins.

A low-pressure system in the eastern Gulf of Mexico was upgraded to Subtropical Depression 10 Friday morning and subsequently to Tropical Depression 10 (TD10), but it was becoming more and more apparent that the system posed little or no threat to offshore production facilities. That was reflected both by prices continuing to fall at nearly all points Friday and by announcements that some evacuated workers were already starting to return to their platforms and mobile rigs that afternoon.

Burned so badly that it subsequently got out of the gas andelectric marketing business, LG&E Energy nevertheless has urgedthe Federal Energy Regulatory Commission not to interfere with theinfant electric market by imposing price caps. The marketer, whichhad been among the largest in the business, said the price run-upin June to the neighborhood of $7,000 per MWh for gas deliveredinto Cinergy was part of the “growing pains” of an immaturecommodities market.