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Workers brought a malfunctioning natural gas well in Wyoming County, PA, under control on Thursday, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance on Tuesday called on his colleagues to make the case for “smart” regulations and government collaboration to ensure the shale revolution is not suppressed by uninformed critics.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp. has unveiled a $7.2-7.6 billion capital expenditure (capex) plan for this year, and it plans to direct most of those funds to U.S. onshore and Gulf of Mexico (GOM), the operator said last week. The forecast capex for 2013 is sharply higher from a projection set last March of of $6.6-6.9 billion.

Apache Corp. is taking no prisoners in the Permian Basin nor in the Midcontinent after building output from the combined regions by almost 24% in 2012 from 2011. The Permian and Central operations in 4Q2012 by themselves represented 25% of Apache’s total global production at 197,000 boe/d.

Internal test results, couple with those of other local operators, have bolstered Mancos Shale natural gas prospects for Rapid City, SD-based Black Hills Corp., according to CEO David Emery, who offered an optimistic outlook in reporting increased profits for 4Q2012 and all of last year for the diversified utility and exploration and production (E&P) company.

Drilling in Eastern Tennessee’s dry gas Chattanooga Shale play has ceased due to low natural gas prices, so the focus has shifted to extracting oil from the state’s Fort Payne formation, which lies atop the Chattanooga. Miller Energy Resources, Inc. this week is shipping its first tanker truckload of oil produced from the Fort Payne’s only unconventional well, according to Gary Bible, vice president of geology for the Knoxville, TN-based firm.

Five years from now, Montney Shale gas could have a pathway to the British Columbia (BC) west coast and potentially lucrative Asian gas markets via a C$5 billion pipeline project announced by TransCanada Corp. on Wednesday.

Forest Oil Corp. has agreed to sell all of its South Texas properties — excluding those in the Eagle Ford Shale — for proceeds of $325 million after tax as part of its ongoing deleveraging plan, the company said Thursday.

California’s preliminary state agency-drafted rules for hydraulic fracturing (fracking) have been targeted by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), which has criticized state regulators as being in “denial” of potential harmful environmental impacts of fracking.