Tentatively

Marathon Petroleum Corp. (MPC) and Harvest Pipeline Co. have tentatively agreed to develop the capability to ship Utica Shale production from eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania by barge on the Ohio River.

A bill that would legalize hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in North Carolina and lay the groundwork for its regulation tentatively was scheduled for a second reading Wednesday in the state Senate, one day after clearing a key legislative committee.

Ahead of the annual shareholder meeting on Friday, Chesapeake Energy Corp. acquiesced to demands of major shareholder groups and Carl Icahn, who now holds 7.8% of the stock, and said four existing independent directors would resign from the board. The company also has put up for sale 337,481 net acres in its prized Utica/Point Pleasant Shale, which would give it less than one million acres in the play.

BP plc executives are hopeful that they can complete “in a few days” the $7.8 billion settlement tentatively reached last month with thousands of individuals and businesses that were impacted by the April 2010 Macondo well blowout in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GOM), Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said Thursday at the company’s annual meeting.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has completed a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) for a series of five oil and gas lease sales tentatively scheduled for 2012-2017 in the Western and Central Gulf of Mexico (GOM) planning areas.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has completed a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) for a series of five oil and gas lease sales tentatively scheduled for 2012-2017 in the Western and Central Gulf of Mexico (GOM) planning areas.

The abundance of gas coming out of the Marcellus Shale is contributing to a situation on Columbia Gas Transmission that is pinching the pipeline’s storage operations in northern Ohio and creating oversupply on the western portion of its system, according to a recent rate adjustment filing at FERC.

Sixty-six House lawmakers asked Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne Friday to table plans for a tentatively scheduled September oil and gas lease sale in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA) around the environmentally sensitive Teshekpuk Lake area.

Sixty-six House lawmakers urged Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne Friday to table plans for a tentatively scheduled September oil and gas lease sale in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA) around the environmentally sensitive Teshekpuk Lake area.