BOE Report Staff

  CALGARY - A new survey suggests the vast majority of North American exploration and production companies believe natural gas prices have hit bottom. The report by RBC Capital Markets and the Economist Intelligence Unit looked at the economic effects of growing shale gas production. A whopping 87 per cent of exploration and production market participants surveyed predict natural gas prices will stay the same or increase over the next two years. And 73 per cent of respondents [Read more]

By Canadian Press/BOE Report NEW YORK — U.S. stocks are dropping sharply as investors worry that Italy could be seized with political paralysis, stymieing the country’s economic reforms and causing another flare-up in the region’s debt crisis. The Dow Jones industrial average plunged 216 points to 13,784 Monday, a loss of 1.6 percent and the biggest drop since November. The Standard & Poor’s 500 dropped 27 points, or 1.8 percent, to 1,487, and the VIX soared 35% to 18.99. The TSX [Read more]

  By Bob Weber EDMONTON — Another company has pulled the plug on one of the Alberta government’s high-profile projects to capture and store carbon created by the energy industry. Swan Hills Synfuels and the province announced Monday that they will discontinue a $285-million funding agreement that would have seen underground coal converted to gas and then burned to generate electricity. The carbon dioxide would have been stripped out and sold to nearby oilfields to boost [Read more]