An independent review of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s draft report on water near Pavillion, Wyo., concluded scientific analysis fails to support EPA’s suggestion that hydraulic fracturing possibly contributed to water contamination, the Independent Petroleum Association of America reported.

More than two thirds of federal offshore tracts leased by the oil and gas industry and more than half of the federal onshore acreage companies hold in the Lower 48 remains idle, the US Department of the Interior said in a new report. Groups representing producers immediately dismissed the allegation as tired election year rhetoric.

The American Petroleum Institute announced it will try to make more access to federally controlled energy resources, commonsense regulations, quicker permit decisions, and market-based renewable and alternative energy research and development provisions in the 2012 Democratic and Republican party platforms.

Unconventional oil and gas resources topped a list of areas that the governments of Canada and Poland have identified as having “potential for further dialog and cooperation.”

Oklahoma City independent Chesapeake Energy Corp. is confident it will complete assets sales to help resolve financial concerns, its chief executive officer told analysts and investors during a conference call in which he also outlined a new $3 billion loan.

The drop in energy prices accelerated May 14 in a broad market selloff after political parties in Greece failed to form a new coalition government over the weekend.

BHP Billiton Petroleum is considering whether to write down its US shale gas assets by the end of the quarter, as it already plans to cut the number of shale gas wells it drills in the coming months, the company’s chief executive officer told the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association conference in Adelaide.