BOE Report

Penn West cuts staff by 25% this year

  CALGARY - Penn West Petroleum Ltd. (TSX:PWT) said Thursday that it has cut its workforce by a quarter since the beginning of the year in order to improve competitiveness. The Calgary-based oil company's head count now stands at 1,600, down from 2,150 at the start of 2013. Since the fall of 2012, Penn West has reduced its staff by 30 per cent. The company expects to take a $25-million charge in the third quarter in connection with the layoffs. "This week, Penn West has taken [Read more]

Keystone southern leg over 90% complete

TransCanada said Tuesday the southern leg of its 700,000 barrel per day pipeline is now over 90 percent complete. The company expects the line to be in service by the end of 2013. Spokesman Shawn Howard said testing and commissioning activities were underway on the line which runs from Cushing, Oklahoma, to Nederland, Texas, and is the southern leg of the project. Howard said in an email “Our testing and commissioning work will take place over the next few months and we continue to focus [Read more]

Senate energy committee set to release findings of oil and gas report

  OTTAWA - A new Senate report is calling for an arm's length review of rail safety in Canada following a disaster that devastated a small Quebec town this summer."We've been working on these issues for the last nine months and the shocking Lac-Megantic rail disaster has only intensified the need to address hydrocarbon transportation safety," Conservative Sen. Richard Neufeld, chair of the Senate energy committee, said in a statement."In the years ahead, hydrocarbon production will [Read more]

West Virginia study: fracking not endangering air quality

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A state study says no new rules are needed to protect West Virginia’s air quality from natural gas drilling. State lawmakers were presented with the study’s results during an interim committee meeting Tuesday. The report was created by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s Office of Oil and Gas. It looked at the impact of fracking, a process in which water and sand is injected underground to access deposits of shale oil and gas. Among other [Read more]

TransCanada says Enbridge’s GTA pipeline is bad for Ontario consumers

  CALGARY - TransCanada Corp. is urging Ontario's energy regulator to reject a proposal by rival Enbridge Inc. for bringing more natural gas into the Greater Toronto Area, arguing the project would not benefit consumers.In a filing to the Ontario Energy Board last Friday, TransCanada questions Enbridge's view that the GTA Pipeline will lead to savings by sourcing gas from a hub in southern Ontario versus one in Alberta.It also says the line, as currently proposed, would be too big and [Read more]

CNOOC says first half profit rises after Nexen buy

HONG KONG (AP) -- China's state-owned CNOOC says first half-profit rose 8 percent on higher oil and gas output after buying Canada's Nexen. Chairman Wang Yilin said Tuesday the company is now focused on integrating Nexen and getting ready for a listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The $15.1 billion purchase of Nexen, which closed in February, was China's biggest-ever overseas energy acquisition. The deal was part of a broader trend of Chinese resource companies making foreign [Read more]

Alberta sets rules on industry, aboriginal talks

  EDMONTON - Alberta has set new rules on how resource industries must deal with aboriginal bands, despite the objections of at least one group that says the policy is designed to keep government in the driver's seat."Government has the complete upper hand," Eriel Deranger, a spokeswoman for the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, said Monday. "We don't want government to be developing stuff for us; we want to be developing things in partnership with governments."The final draft of how [Read more]

Pipeline rivals in court over GTA project

  CALGARY - TransCanada Corp. is suing the gas distribution business of rival Enbridge Inc. over its decision to end an agreement that would see the two firms co-operate on a 23-kilometre stretch natural gas pipeline in the Greater Toronto Area."TransCanada will suffer irreparable harm if Enbridge does not abide by the terms of the (memorandum of understanding)," TransCanada said in a statement of claim filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice last week.To accommodate growing [Read more]

UK lawmaker arrested at anti-fracking protest

LONDON (AP) -- A British lawmaker was among more than two dozen people arrested Monday at a protest against shale gas extraction in southern England. Caroline Lucas, Britain's only Green Party member in Parliament, was led away by police from a sit-in at the gates of a drilling site near the village of Balcombe and put in a police van. Sussex Police said about 25 protesters were arrested for offenses including assault and "obstruction of the highway." Lucas said she and the other [Read more]

Oil falls below $107 as stock markets stall

  The price of oil fell below $107 a barrel Monday as traders pondered the effects of the Egyptian crisis on transport costs and whether the U.S. Federal Reserve will start to reduce its monetary stimulus next month. By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark oil for September delivery was down 62 cents to $106.84 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 13 cents to close at $107.46 on Friday, which was its sixth straight day of gains, [Read more]