Three

Denver-based Whiting Petroleum Corp. officials said Friday they expected to greatly ramp up production in both the Bakken and Niobrara shale plays later this year as they reported production for the second quarter that was up substantially from the same period in 2012.

A class action lawsuit in Ohio pending in a Youngstown court could affect property owners attempting to rid themselves of original lease agreements with oil and natural gas operators.

Analysts believe operators in the Utica Shale will soon be able to bring many of their wells into production, thanks to progress in building new gathering lines, but they also caution that investors may have set their expectations too high for areas outside of the play’s core.

Three years after the Macondo well blowout and resulting drilling moratorium, oil and gas exploration has been slowly but surely returning to the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). On Wednesday Royal Dutch Shell plc reported a successful exploratory well at Vicksburg in the deepwater GOM.

Temperatures across almost all of the United States will average warmer than normal over the next three months, though the Southeast and Ohio Valley may get some cooler breaks, according to a seasonal forecast released last week by Weather Services International (WSI).

Long on the defense regarding the historic Macondo well blowout in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico three years ago, BP plc has gone on the offensive to recover some of the settlements it’s paid out for Gulf Coast businesses that may have been inflated or fictitious.

Temperatures across almost all of the United States will average warmer than normal over the next three months, though the Southeast and Ohio Valley may get some cooler breaks, according to a seasonal forecast released Tuesday by Weather Services International (WSI).

Physical gas for weekend and Monday delivery overall eased a penny as traders saw little incentive to buy a three-day package under conditions of mild expected weather and the ability to easily make intraday purchases as needed.

The mayor of San Bruno, CA — where a natural gas transmission pipeline rupture and explosion killed eight nearly three years ago — on Wednesday called for the California Attorney General’s Office and state lawmakers to investigate replacement of the state regulatory legal team investigating the event.