NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. hopes for a new shale oil bonanza in Ohio, joining the prolific Bakken and Eagle Ford plays that have raised production to 20-year highs, were shattered on Thursday by the first hard evidence that the Utica formation was primarily gas-prone.

Just two years ago, the Utica had the global oil industry buzzing as companies rushed to buy acreage in the Midwest state in the belief it could hold a $500-billion bounty, as Chesapeake Energy’s former CEO, Aubrey McClendon, had proclaimed.

NEW YORK, May 16 (Reuters) – Oil production from the Utica
shale in the U.S. state of Ohio was lower in 2012 than first
anticipated and in much of the play it will be dwarfed by
“significant” gas output, the Ohio Department of Natural
Resources said on Thursday.

Oil production averaged 1,742 barrels a day, according to a
Reuters calculation from total Utica shale production data
issued by the department.

LONDON/NEW YORK, May 15 (Reuters) – Angola’s hopes of
becoming this year’s only major new liquefied natural gas
supplier suffered another setback in April after fire occurred
at its plant just hours before production was to begin.

This could further delay the troubled project, which is seen
as key to relieving a global shortage of the fuel and could
help push global LNG prices back towards record highs.

NEW YORK, May 2 (Reuters) – A New York state court on
Thursday ruled that two towns should be able to choose whether
or not they can ban a controversial oil and gas drilling
technique known as “fracking.”

In a decision that could set precedent in the state and
create a major setback to oil and gas drilling firms, the New
York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, upheld zoning laws
that allowed the towns of Dryden and Middlefield to ban oil and
gas exploration and production.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – When the conversation between President Barack Obama and his newly elected Mexican counterpart Enrique Pena Nieto turns to the controversial topic of energy during their meeting this week, both are apt to step carefully.

The two countries have abruptly changed positions over the past decade: Mexico, once the growing energy power, is struggling to maintain production; the United States, once a guaranteed importer, is enjoying a lucrative energy boom.

By Edward McAllister and Robert Gibbons

(Reuters) – Exxon Mobil Corp’s near 70-year-old Pegasus oil pipeline spilled a small amount of crude on Tuesday into a residential yard in Ripley County, Missouri, a month after the same pipe spewed thousands of barrels of crude in Arkansas.

A resident notified the company of the spill after spotting a patch of oil and dead vegetation seven miles south of Doniphan in the southeast of the state, Exxon and state officials said on Wednesday.

MAYFLOWER, Arkansas (Reuters) – Warren Andrews had just finished putting up balloons for his stepdaughter’s 18th birthday party at their suburban home in Mayflower, Arkansas, when his wife came inside and said something was wrong.

After stepping out of his house, and taking one glance, he immediately dialed 911.

MAYFLOWER, Arkansas, April 11 (Reuters) – Warren Andrews had
just finished putting up balloons for his stepdaughter’s 18th
birthday party at their suburban home in Mayflower, Arkansas,
when his wife came inside and said something was wrong.

After stepping out of his house, and taking one glance, he
immediately dialed 911.

By Edward McAllister

(Reuters) – Recovery efforts were underway on Thursday to clean up an oil spill in western Minnesota a day after a mile-long Canadian Pacific Railway train derailed, rupturing three tankers and leaking around 15,000 gallons of fuel.

The cleanup was expected to take another day or two, officials said, after 11 cars on a 94-car train heading for the Chicago area left the tracks on Wednesday about 150 miles northwest of Minneapolis near the town of Parkers Prairie.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Shares of Gulfport Energy were in free fall last spring, dropping 55 percent in four months, until the oil and gas producer announced it had drilled its first three wells in the Utica shale formation in Ohio.

The Oklahoma-based company’s value has since more than doubled, bolstered by a series of company production updates on those and a handful of other new wells located in what many believe to be the next frontier in America’s oil and gas revolution.