Bakken Shale

Wyoming energy officials will adopt more rigorous tests for oil and natural gas operators asking for confidentiality of their hydraulic fracturing (fracking) chemicals, following a state court settlement reached late Friday.

Over the weekend, investigative work on the Poplar Pipeline crossing under the Yellowstone River in northeast Montana, where a leak occurred a week earlier, uncovered exposure of the 60-year-old pipeline in an area in which it had originally been buried eight feet below the riverbed.

Water supplies affected by last Saturday’s crude oil spill of up to 50,000 gallons along the Yellowstone River in Montana were deemed to be meeting federal safe drinking water standards as of Friday, the state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) said.

A 16-word amendment to the Keystone XL bill recognizing that climate change is real but not specifying a cause passed with nearly unanimous support in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday. But five other amendments, including two that put the blame for climate change squarely on “human activities,” foundered.

Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI) agreed to pay about $3 billion, including about $1 billion of assumed debt, for Hiland Partners, which has crude oil gathering and transportation pipelines, and natural gas gathering and processing systems, primarily serving the Bakken Shale in North Dakota and Montana.

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock on Monday declared a state of emergency in two counties along the Yellowstone River that were hit by a spill of up to 50,000 gallons of crude oil Saturday morning. State officials said there was no threat to public safety or health.

Hours before President Obama was to give his State of the Union address, Republicans in the U.S. Senate showed some willingness to work with Democrats on energy issues, after giving overwhelming support to a bipartisan amendment to the Keystone XL pipeline bill and agreeing to discuss six more amendments — three from each party.

The United States could sustain strong economic growth, add more jobs and improve global energy security by expanding crude oil exports, ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance said Wednesday.

North Dakota officials Wednesday reported a big drop in Bakken Shale sweet crude oil prices and a rig count that has fallen to 158, the lowest in six years.