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Front-month crude dipped 0.7% May 9 in the New York market amid concerns over falling demand and rising supply despite a bullish report on commercial US oil inventories that boosted prices in the previous session.

Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GMBH has launched the nonbinding first phase of an open season to book capacity on the 800-mile Nabucco pipeline.

Thirteen US House Republicans formed a working group to consider ways the federal Endangered Species Act is working, how it could be updated, and how to make it more effective. ESA matters to oil and gas producers as petitions to list species as endangered are filed with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, sometimes with the potential to severely restrict or outright prohibit exploration, production, and development.

BP PLC has commissioned a diesel hydrotreater and hydrogen plant at its 234,000-b/d Cherry Point refinery at Blaine, Washington.

Mississippi has reduced the severance tax on hydrocarbons produced from horizontal wells and the sales tax paid on electricity for oil and gas produced via carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery.

Dallas-based Crosstex Energy companies Crosstex Energy LP and Crosstex Energy Inc. have announced that Crosstex Energy Inc. will invest about $25 million in a third natural gas compression and condensate stabilization plant in the Ohio River Valley.

MarkWest Energy Partners LP, Denver, has bought midstream assets in the Anadarko basin from a wholly owned subsidiary of Chesapeake Energy Corp. for $245 million.

Inpex Corp., through a subsidiary, has agreed to acquire a 30% participating interest in Area 15 offshore Uruguay from a subsidiary of Tullow Oil PLC (see map, OGJ, May 7, 2012, p. 60).

The front-month US benchmark crude was up 1.1% in the New York market amid mixed trading May 8, following a bullish report on US inventories.

Petronas Brasil E&P Ltda. has agreed to buy interests in two blocks in Brazil’s Campos basin from OGX Petroleo e Gas SA for $850 million.

US House Natural Resources Committee members from both sides of the aisle questioned whether Congress would be willing to fund a federal hydraulic fracturing regulatory regime at the US Bureau of Land Management.

Canada’s minister of natural resources has warned officials of the European Union against “discriminatory treatment” of fuels made from products of Canadian oil sands.

Millennium Pipeline Co. is holding a nonbinding open season for firm transportation service through the use of both existing capacity and construction of at least one compressor station and about 60 miles of pipeline.

Apache Corp. will sell properties worth $4 billion by the end of 2013 in what G. Steven Farris, chairman and chief executive officer, described as a program to “divest noncore assets while retaining those that drive long-term growth and generate cash from operations.”

A test deployment of well control equipment was completed by the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), Noble Energy Inc., and the Helix Well Containment Group (HWCG) to assess Noble’s ability to respond to a potential subsea blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.

Oil prices generally retreated May 7 with front-month crude ending a three-session rally in the New York market as Middle East conflict failed to heat up.

Safety was a priority for engineers planning the first floating production, storage, and offloading vessel installed in the Gulf of Mexico, Petrobras America Inc. executives told a May 6 technical session of the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston.

Jack Schanck, president and chief executive officer of Sonde Resources Corp., Calgary, has formally notified the board of his intention to retire from Sonde for personal reasons.

The American Petroleum Institute urged the US Environmental Protection Agency to use a full Clean Air Act rulemaking process for its proposed Tier 3 rule instead of a rushed review process API says the agency is contemplating.

ExxonMobil Corp. will develop a field with nearly 6 billion bbl of resource in place more than 30,000 ft below the sea floor in more than 7,000 ft of water in the Gulf of Mexico.

Husky Oil Operations Ltd. has let two contracts to Technip for work related to the South White Rose Extension (SWRX) tieback to White Rose oil field offshore Newfoundland and Labrador.

Debate over whether the US should authorize more LNG exports has been too narrowly focused on potential domestic impacts, an energy and geopolitical expert told a US House subcommittee.

Gazpromneft has let a front-end engineering and design contract to a Foster Wheeler AG subsidiary for an upgrade of its Moscow refinery.

A group led by a subsidiary of KrisEnergy Ltd., Singapore, has tested gas at the Lengo-2 appraisal well on the Bulu PSC in the East Java Sea offshore Indonesia.