A deepwater wildcat in the western Black Sea off Romania has discovered an accumulation initially pegged at 1.5 to 3 trillion cu ft of gas whose commerciality isn’t assured, press reports said Wednesday.

Crude oil costs and taxes are still bigger influences than refinery production and product exports in gasoline price increases, American Petroleum Institute Chief Economist John C. Felmy said.

Mitsubishi Corp. agreed to pay Talisman Energy Inc. $280 million for a stake in nine natural gas blocks in Papua New Guinea's onshore Western Province, subject to approvals by government and joint venture partners.

A Royal Dutch Shell PLC subsidiary has offered to buy Cove Energy PLC for $1.6 billion in a move that would mark Shell’s entry into Mozambique and Kenya. Cove also has holdings in Tanzania where Shell already has a presence.

Connacher Oil & Gas Ltd., Calgary, which last month disclosed a strategic review following key management changes, has delayed the planned expansion of its Alberta oil sands production project and named an interim chief executive officer (OGJ Online, Jan. 20, 2012).

Another refinery designed to produce diesel from Bakken crude oil is in prospect in the Williston basin.

The front-month contract for crude oil soared above $106/bbl in a late rally Feb. 21 in the New York market before closing slightly lower. Natural gas fell, however, ending a two-session resurgence.

Magellan Midstream Partners LP extended by a week the binding open season to solicit commitments from shippers to transport crude oil from Crane, Tex., to the partnership’s East Houston terminal for further delivery to the Houston and Texas City-area refineries through Magellan’s distribution system.

Statoil has let a contract to Technip for work on what it calls the world’s first subsea natural gas compression facility, to be installed in Asgard area in the Norwegian Sea.

Teak Midstream LLC is building more than 200 miles of natural gas gathering and residue delivery pipelines and an adjoining 200 MMcfd cryogenic gas processing plant in South Texas to transport and process Eagle Ford shale gas.

Jubilant Energy NV has spudded the Kathalchari-NE appraisal well on the AA-ONN-2002/1 block in Tripura, India.

African Petroleum Corp. Ltd. said the Narina-1 well on its 100% owned LB-09 block offshore Liberia found 69 ft of net oil pay in the Turonian and 36 ft in the Albian.

SemGroup Corp., Gavilon Group LLC unit Gavilon Midstream Energy LLC, and a unit of Chesapeake Energy Corp. plan to form a joint venture to build a 210-mile pipeline in western and north-central Oklahoma. The line will transport oil to a 1 million bbl storage facility in Cushing.

Schuepbach Energy LLC, Dallas, will shoot 2D seismic surveys and drill research wells in two areas of Uruguay under production sharing contracts signed Feb. 10 with state-owned ANCAP.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp. reported that its board promoted Al Walker to the position of chief executive officer. Walker currently serves as the Houston independent’s president and chief operating officer.

There was no floor trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and no closing prices on either NYMEX or the oil and gas spot markets Feb. 20 due to the Presidents’ Day holiday in the US.

MOEX Offshore LLC agreed to pay $90 million to settle its liability in the Macondo deepwater well incident and spill in 2010, the US Department of Justice, Coast Guard, and Environmental Protection Agency jointly announced on Feb. 17.

A study commissioned by the INGAA Foundation concluded that $229.1 billion in projected US midstream oil and gas investments and operations and maintenance outlays through 2035 would support an average of 125,339 jobs/year; generate nearly $57 billion in federal, state, and local taxes; and add $511.5 billion in total economic output.

Williams Partners LP has entered into a joint venture with Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. to build the 120-mile Constitution Pipeline, connecting Williams Partners’ natural gas gathering system in Susquehanna County, Pa., to the Iroquois Gas Transmission and Tennessee Gas Pipeline systems in Schoharie County, NY.

The Macasty shale on Anticosti Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence offshore Quebec has properties similar to those of the Utica shale, the Macasty geological equivalent in eastern Ohio, said Corridor Resources Inc., Halifax, NS.