Turn

In a swap of sorts, Norway’s Statoil ASA is buying a quarter interest in 50 of ConocoPhillips’ leases in the Chukchi Sea offshore Alaska. In turn, the Houston-based producer would take a stake in some of Statoil’s leases in the Lower Tertiary Trend of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). No financial details were disclosed.

In a swap of sorts, Norway’s Statoil ASA is buying a quarter interest in 50 of ConocoPhillips’ leases in the Chukchi Sea offshore Alaska. In turn, the Houston-based producer would take a stake in some of Statoil’s leases in the Lower Tertiary Trend of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). No financial details were disclosed.

Current price lows will turn out to be the beginning of a new growth era for natural gas across North America, TransCanada Corp. President Hal Kvisle predicted Thursday.

Long-term growth in energy demand cannot be reversed, but volatility in oil and gas prices could dampen future supplies and presents one of the “main challenges” facing the energy industry, BP plc CEO Tony Hayward said last week.

The CEO of Continental Resources Inc. last week said he’s gotten “a lot of support” from fellow producers since his company asked Oklahoma regulators to reduce natural gas output levels. “Nobody wants to waste a valuable resource,” Harold Hamm told NGI.

It could take up to $2 billion and the next six years, but engineers at Southern California Edison Co. (SCE) think it is realistic to hope that a consortium by 2015 can turn petroleum refinery waste into an integrated gas combined-cycle (IGCC) power plant with carbon capture storage in nearby oil fields. But SCE’s project manager, Mark Nelson, told NGI the first step is to complete a feasibility study.

In an unusual turn of events, the federal appeals court that last year stopped Shell Oil Co. subsidiary Shell Offshore Inc. (SOI) from drilling offshore Alaska has vacated and withdrawn its decision.

Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s share price took another wrong turn Monday partly on its announcement last week that it would issue stock to raise nearly $1.8 billion to finance U.S. natural gas drilling and exploration activities.

Energy companies’ share prices were on the rebound Monday, a welcome turn for the sector, after ending last week drastically down and on reports that the CEOs of Chesapeake Energy Corp. and XTO Energy Inc. had been forced to sell millions of shares of their companies’ stock.