Ticket

Chevron Corp. on Friday said quarterly earnings were down 4.5% and revenue was off more than 6% as the integrated major spent for some big-ticket natural gas projects that won’t be ramping up for years, and it dealt with refinery maintenance issues in the United States.

Two big-ticket acquisitions in the Fayetteville Shale by BHP Billiton Petroleum and XTO Energy Inc. suggest that the pace of development in the play will be accelerating, acknowledged Steve Mueller, CEO of Fayetteville veteran Southwestern Energy Co. But his company can hold its own, having locked in some of its costs and beaten down drilling times, Mueller said.

Two big-ticket acquisitions in the Fayetteville Shale by BHP Billiton Petroleum and XTO Energy Inc. suggest that the pace of development in the play will be accelerating, acknowledged Steve Mueller, CEO of Fayetteville veteran Southwestern Energy Co. But his company can hold its own, having locked in some of its costs and beaten down drilling times, Mueller said.

The bullish prospects for natural gas-fired power generation andthe robust market developing in the merchant plant sector were bothunderscored last week by Duke Energy Power Services’ plans toinvest $700 million in state-of-the-art gas-fired units at two ofits recently purchased merchant sites in California.