June 6 (Reuters) – Halliburton Co said a shortage of
guar beans in India meant North American profit margins this
quarter would drop by twice as much as it had expected, knocking
its shares down by 5 percent to an 8-month low.

Guar, which is also used to make sauces and ice cream, is a
key part of the hydraulic fracturing fluids that have been in
high demand due to a boom in U.S. drilling and well development.
Halliburton, the world’s second-largest oilfield services
company, has said the guar system can now account for as much as
30 percent of the overall fracking price.

June 6 (Reuters) – Nabors Industries Ltd investors
delivered another rebuke to the oil driller by overwhelmingly
rejecting its executive pay plan while seeking oversight of
severance packages after its previous CEO nearly took $100
million with him out the door.

The severance proposal, presented at the annual meeting in
Bermuda on Tuesday, sought shareholder approval of any senior
executive severance above 2.99 times their base salary and
bonus. Nabors said in a statement on Wednesday that 66 percent
of its shares were voted in favor of the non-binding resolution.

By Braden Reddall

(Reuters) – Halliburton Co (HAL.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the world’s second-largest oil services company, said higher costs would have twice as big an impact on its North American profit margins this quarter than it expected, and its shares fell 4 percent to an 8-month low.

The cause of the cost escalation is pricier guar gum, an agricultural commodity used in hydraulic fracturing fluids and in high demand because of the surge in U.S. well development. Halliburton has said the guar system can now account for as much as 30 percent of the overall fracking price.

June 6 (Reuters) – Halliburton Co, the world’s
second-largest oil services company, said higher costs would
have twice as big an impact on its North American profit margins
this quarter than it expected, and its shares fell 4 percent to
an 8-month low.

The cause of the cost escalation is pricier guar gum, an
agricultural commodity used in hydraulic fracturing fluids and
in high demand because of the surge in U.S. well development.
Halliburton has said the guar system can now account for as much
as 30 percent of the overall fracking price.

June 5 (Reuters) – Cemig , a Brazilian
power utility controlled by Minas Gerais state, believes natural
gas from local shale deposits can fuel further growth of one of
the country’s industrial hotspots.

Dorothea Werneck, who chairs Cemig’s board and holds a top
position in the Minas Gerais government, said initial results
were “very, very promising” from shale exploration there, in
blocks held by companies including Royal Dutch Shell Plc
and Petrobras.

June 5 (Reuters) – A majority of Nabors Industries Ltd
shareholders voted for the right to officially nominate
board directors, following a year of upheaval over the company’s
executive compensation and defeat of such a measure at the
national level.

The proposal asks Nabors, owner of the world’s largest
land-drilling fleet, to adopt a bylaw allowing holders of 3
percent of its stock for three years to nominate directors for
up to 25 percent of the board in the official “proxy” voting
materials.

/DALLAS, May 30 (Reuters) – Concerns about
hydraulic fracturing among investors have eased at Chevron, even
as they have increased at Exxon, and pressure to name
independent chairmen at the two largest U.S. oil companies has
also grown.

Familiar groups of protesters descended on the respective
annual meetings in California and Texas, and each had the added
flavor of the Occupy movement that spread across the country
last year.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The Golden Gate Bridge was a larger than life engineering project undertaken against dangerous odds and it opened 75 years ago on Sunday against vehement protest, at the cost of 11 lives.

One of the most astonishing and admired man-made wonders of the world, gracing millions of postcards, featured in countless films, the bridge was not at first welcomed with open arms.

May 24 (Reuters) – Noble Corp, owner of the
third-largest offshore drilling fleet, is budgeting for capital
spending to grow by about a fifth next year, unless it decides
to build a new rig to add to the 11 now in the works.

Based on Noble’s current program that includes five new
deepwater drillships and six shallow-water jackups, Chief
Financial Officer James MacLennan gave a projection for 2013
capital expenditure of $2.3 billion, up from $1.9 billion this
year.

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Chevron Phillips Chemical Co, one of the top five U.S. chemical companies by volume, believes the oversupply of natural gas liquids (NGLs)that feed its U.S. plants is unlikely to be eliminated for another four or five years.

The joint venture of Chevron Corp (CVX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Phillips 66 Co (PSX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) is spending $5 billion on new ethylene facilities in Texas as part of a broader industry build-out that should soak up demand for NGLs such as ethane.