Karoon Gas Australia Ltd. said recovery of additional samples indicates that the extent of its Bilby-1 indicated discovery in the Santos basin offshore Brazil is larger than previously thought.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Eni Pakistan Ltd. said the Lundali-1 new field wildcat is a gas discovery on the Sukhpur block in the Kirthar fold belt 270 km north of Karachi, Pakistan.

HRT Oil & Gas Ltd., Rio de Janeiro, will acquire BP PLC’s 60% interest in Polvo oil field in shallow water in the southern Campos basin offshore Brazil for $135 million cash.

Apache Corp. has gauged oil and-or gas discoveries in three basins in northwestern Egypt, including one discovery that established the deepest production to date in the Western Desert producing province.

Joint Oil, the Tunisia-Libya offshore authority, has approved a farmout by Sonde Resources Corp., Calgary, of the Joint Oil block in the Mediterranean off the two countries to Viking Exploration & Production Tunisia Ltd., a private company.

Cairn Energy PLC’s Capricorn Ireland Ltd. unit has taken a farmout from Chrysaor Holdings Ltd. Irish subsidiary to earn an interest in two Porcupine basin licenses west of Ireland that contain the Spanish Point gas-condensate and Burren oil discoveries.

Magnum Hunter Resources Corp., Houston, has taken delivery of a robotic drilling rig, the fifth rig in its fleet, that it expects to spud a Utica shale well in southeastern Ohio on June 1.

Condor Petroleum Inc., Calgary, received regulatory approval for a completion and testing program of KN-E-201 oil discovery on the 2,610 sq km Zharkamys territory in the Precaspian basin in Kazakhstan.

Canada’s National Energy Board granted a commercial discovery declaration to Lone Pine Resources Inc., Calgary, with respect to the Upper and Lower Besa River shale intervals in the Pointed Mountain field area of the Liard basin in western Northwest Territories.