Cairn India Ltd. said it has spudded the first exploratory well in more than 4 years on the RJ-ON-90/1 development block in the Barmer basin in Rajasthan, India.

Chevron Corp. has signed a potential multimillion-dollar farmin deal with Adelaide-based Beach Energy Ltd.’s acreage in the Cooper basin in Australia.

Security concerns are slowing energy development in India.

A group led by Eni SPA has elevated the gas potential of the Mamba Complex in Area 4 offshore Mozambique to 75 tcf in place with drilling of the Coral-3 delineation well.

TerraWest Energy Corp., Vancouver, BC, has provided results of its 2012 exploratory drilling program on the Liuhuanggou coalbed methane production sharing contract area covering 255 sq miles adjacent to the city of Urumqi, capital of China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, in the Junggar basin.

Bowleven PLC will set liner and conduct tests after its IM-5 well in Block MLHP-7 of the Etinde permit offshore Cameroon validated sufficient gas volumes to meet requirements of a planned onshore fertilizer plant.

Lukoil is considering development options for Imilorskoye oil field in the Surgutsky district of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug of Russia.

The government of New South Wales plans to establish 2-km exclusion zones around towns in the state with populations above 1,000 or more people to keep coal seam gas exploration and production activity away from residential areas.

US Sec. of the Interior Ken Salazar signed a final plan for managing the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska that he and several environmental organizations called balanced, and the Alaska Oil & Gas Association called needlessly restrictive.

The Kurdistan Regional Government has awarded the Qara Dagh block to Chevron Corp.

ConocoPhillips has committed to its $109.5 million farmin to Perth-based New Standard Energy Ltd.’s Goldwyer shale project in the onshore Canning basin of Western Australia.