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The front-month crude price was up 1.4% Apr. 29 on the New York futures market, pulled along by an equity market that anticipated the European Central Bank will reduce interest rates at its May 2 meeting while the Federal Reserve Bank won’t raise its rates.

The Bakken and Three Forks formations in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana hold an estimated mean of 7.38 billion bbl of undiscovered, technically recoverable crude oil, the US Geological Survey announced.

Alberta Energy has selected leaders of the Alberta Energy Regulator, a new independent agency consolidating activities of the Energy Resources and Conservation Board with the ministerial department Environment and Sustainable Resource Development.

Hess Corp. wants to divest its exploration and production assets in Indonesia and Thailand where it also is trying to sell its remaining downstream businesses, including terminals, retail, marketing, and trading divisions.

The number of US unconventional oil and natural gas wells drilled in 2011 totaled 10,173 with an expenditure of $65.5 billion, estimated API’s 2011 Joint Association Survey on Drilling Costs report.

Southwestern Energy Co. plans to buy natural gas assets in Pennsylvania's Marcellus shale from Chesapeake Energy Corp. and its partners for $93 million.

Range Resources Ltd. has made an off-market share takeover offer for International Petroleum Ltd. Both companies are based in Perth.

Energy prices slumped Apr. 26, following the stock markets down after the Commerce Department reported the US gross domestic product grew 2.5% in the first quarter, falling short of analysts’ outlook for a 3% rise.

Rosneft and Mitsui & Co. have signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly build a large petrochemical complex in far eastern Russia.

Although a price squeeze on Canadian producers of bitumen and heavy oil has eased recently, pipeline access to waterborne trade remains essential, according to an analyst at Scotiabank, Toronto.

The Petroleum Safety Authority Norway (PSA) has order BP PLC  to review its managements systems, and PSA gave BP until September for the review regarding a September 2012 leak at Ula oil field off Norway  in the North Sea.

Officials of Canada and Israel have called for proposals for research and development projects to be supported by the Canada-Israel Energy Science and Technology Fund, established last year.

Production of mined diluted bitumen has begun from the first of three trains at Imperial Oil Ltd.’s Kearl oil sands project 75 km northeast of Fort McMurray, Alta. (OGJ Online, Feb. 4, 2013).

US Rep. E. Scott Rigell (R-Va.) introduced legislation on Apr. 26 that would make the US Department of the Interior hold an oil and gas lease sale off Virginia’s coast as soon as it was practicable.

The Spanish Council of Ministers awarded two new onshore exploration licenses to San Leon Energy PLC’s wholly owned subsidiary, Frontera Energy, targeting both unconventional and conventional resources.

Aberdeen-based Dana Petroleum has appointed Paul Barnett as the new managing director of its Egypt business.

Oil prices continued to rally Apr. 25 with the front-month crude contract climbing 2.4% in the New York futures market on speculation of US military intervention after US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the Syrian government “likely” used chemical weapons “on a small scale” in its 2-year conflict with rebels.

The US drilling rig count fell by 4 units during the week ended Apr. 26 to a total of 1,754 rotary rigs working, Baker Hughes Inc. reported.

Iran’s crude oil and lease condensate exports last year fell to their lowest level since 1986 as the US and the European Union tightened sanctions targeting Iran’s oil sector, the US Energy Information Administration said.

TransCanada Corp. is pushing back the in-service date for its Keystone XL pipeline from late-2014 or early-2015 to second-half 2015.

Gazprom plans to start production from two oil and gas fields offshore Russia this year: Prirazlomnoye in the Pichora Sea and Kirinskoye in the Sea of Okhotsk.

A group operated by Valiant Causeway Ltd. will drill the first well on the Handcross Prospect in the West of Shetland area offshore the UK this autumn with the Stena Drilling Carron drillship.