E&P

Strong drilling, production and permitting activity drove the Texas Petro Index (TPI) to another record in September, with oil and gas industry employment hitting its highest level since the index was founded in 1995.

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) has rejected a ruling by two administrative law judges (ALJ) that it should dismiss a petition by Sunoco Logistics Partners LP to be a public utility for the Mariner East pipeline. The PUC ordered more public hearings on the issue.

Global equipment manufacturer Dover Corp. is making a deal to buy artificial lift specialist Accelerated Cos. LLC to expand its reach in the U.S. unconventional drilling market.

Continuing its push to divest non-core assets across the country in favor of its properties in the Utica and Marcellus shales, Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. has completed the sale of its non-operated working interests in Divide County, ND, for more than $23 million.

Ohio’s Seventh District Court of Appeals has reversed a key decision by a lower court and ruled in favor of a small oil and gas company in a class action case that affected hundreds of angry landowners and threatened the industry’s ability to protect the terms of its leases.

U.S. natural gas production was 2.65 Tcf in July, up 3.7% compared with 2.55 Tcf in July 2013, and total production through the first seven months of 2014 was 18.26 Tcf, up almost 5% compared to the same period last year, thanks in large part to the nation’s shale plays, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Regulators in 27 states, which collectively account for 98% of domestic oil and natural gas production, have “substantially improved groundwater protection laws and regulations governing oil and natural gas production,” including laws governing hydraulic fracturing (fracking), according to a report by the Ground Water Protection Council (GWPC).

Four years after inspiring a Canadian mineral rights leasing rush, a Louisiana-sized Alberta drilling target — known as the Duvernay among geologists and dubbed “new millennium gold” by stock promoters — is turning out to be a mixed bag.

A proposed pipeline project for moving swelling supplies of Bakken crude oil in North Dakota has hit a roadblock in neighboring Minnesota, causing its sponsor, Canadian-based Enbridge Energy Partners LP, to report Wednesday that the project will be delayed at least a year.