There

In the coming days, Sunoco Logistics Partners LP plans to launch an open season for its planned Eaglebine Express crude pipeline project to convert a portion of the MagTex refined products pipeline to crude service and reverse the flow to carry crude from Hearne, TX, to the company’s terminal in Nederland, TX.

The continuing shale gas boom is having a “massive impact” on the U.S. energy market, particularly a revival for various smart grid developments, according to a report released by IMS Research, a unit of the global research/consulting firm IHS.

Two separate polls conducted by Quinnipiac University show voters in New York and Ohio have very different opinions of shale gas development, with almost two-thirds of Ohioans saying the economic benefits outweigh any environmental concerns, while nearly half of New Yorkers opposed to drilling.

Baker Hughes Inc. on Friday reported a 30% drop in first quarter profits, stung by weak North American drilling, but there is more optimism about the U.S. onshore rig count through the rest of the year, the management team said Friday. Schlumberger Ltd. also reported a drop in quarterly profits on declines in North America, and executives said the outlook this year for the United States and Canada remains uncertain.

The U.S. onshore rig count currently is “trendless,” but there’s hope for some direction in first quarter reports by three of the top domestic oilfield services providers, Schlumberger Ltd., Baker Hughes Inc. and Halliburton Co., according to Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Inc. (TPH).

Thirteen years after the 2000-01 energy market meltdown there are still parts of old legal and regulatory cases emerging in California that carry potentially multi-billion dollar consequences. Two cases emerged the first two weeks of April — one in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco and other at California’s state regulatory commission in the same city.

After studying hundreds of thousands of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations, the practice was determined to have caused noticeable tremors at the surface in only three cases and was “not a significant” source of earthquakes, according to researchers at UK’s Durham University.

SandRidge Energy Inc.’s revamped board of directors is making good on its promise to review the company’s strategy and costs — including a potential decrease in rig count — and allegations made against embattled CEO Tom Ward by hedge fund TPG-Axon Capital.

Federal officials have given a green light for a project in eastern Utah to drill an exploratory well in the Harley Dome natural gas field to capture helium, which, if the operation proves successful, could result in a helping to build supplies of the scarce gas.