The US House Science, Space, and Technology Committee approved legislation that would require the US Environmental Protection Agency to further study possible impacts of increasing allowable ethanol levels in gasoline to 15%.

The front-month crude contract dipped below $97/bbl in a mixed New York market Feb. 6, but front-month natural gas rebound 1.9% on forecasts of colder weather across the US.

The governments of Canada and Alberta, stung by the recent US decision to postpone development of the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline project, have agreed to step up their monitoring of the environmental effects of oil sands developments.

The global market for oil field specialty chemicals reached nearly $16 billion in 2010 with the US and Canada accounting for 52%, which an IHS Chemical market study attributed to increasing oil and natural gas drilling activity in shale plays.

Oil prices rebounded Feb. 3 after the US Department of Labor reported unemployment has fallen to 8.3%—the lowest level since February 2009. But natural gas gave back a sizeable portion of the previous session’s gain in the New York market.

Sky Harvest Windpower Corp., Vancouver, BC, said it has formed a joint venture under the name Levant Energy Inc., a British Columbia corporation, to develop underground natural gas storage fields in Turkey.

PetroChina, a unit of China National Petroleum Corp., has signed a binding agreement to purchase a 20% stake in Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s Groundbirch assets in northeastern British Columbia.