After instituting floors on over two-thirds of its natural gas production and part of its oil production, the CEO of Petroleum Development Corporation also decided to lessen his exposure to volatile natural gas prices by selling stock.
On September 28th, CEO Steven R. Williams sold 100K shares at $40.66 to reduce his holdings to 319.7K shares. [...]

Moody’s Investors Service has today upgraded Qatar Petroleum’s foreign and local currency issuer ratings and its senior unsecured bond rating to Aa3 from A1.
The rating action follows Moody’s upgrade of Qatar’s sovereign ratings to Aa3 on 4 October. The rating outlook is stable.
Today’s rating action concludes the review for upgrade of Qatar Petroleum’s ratings which [...]

Occidental Petroleum ranks no. 412 on FORTUNE’s Global 500 this year, with $16.3 billion in revenues, up 40.3% from the previous year. Its 2005 profits were $5.3 billion, up 105.6% from a year earlier.
2005 was a banner year for most Global 500 companies. It took $13.7 billion in revenue just to make this year’s list [...]

Palisades Petroleum Corporation is pleased to announce that the operator of the North Buffalo and Highwood Property, Cline Production Company of Billings Montana, USA has signed a drilling company to drill two shallow gas wells in North West Montana.
Cline Production Company, the operator of Palisades North Buffalo and Highwood Properties, executed a contract in mid-September [...]

NT Holding Corp. announced it has entered into discussions to acquire crude oil drilling rights from Mongolia Zhong Bayan Crude Oil Company Limited (“Bayan”), a Mongolian company established in 1999.
Bayan owns a 50 year oil drilling concession right in the Nyalga Valley in central Mongolia. This right was granted by the Mongolian Government in 1999. [...]

Kim Harris, Chief Executive Officer of Midlands Minerals Corporation is pleased to announce drilling for gold is scheduled to begin in October 2006 on the Itilima in Tanzania. The Itilima project is located on the Geita - Bulyanhulu - Sekenke trend, in an area with world-class gold deposits, and over 40 million oz in gold [...]

PATTERSON-UTI ENERGY, INC. reported that for the month of September 2006 the Company had a total of 8,940 drilling days, or an average of 298 drilling rigs operating, including an average of 289 rigs in the U.S. and 9 rigs in Canada. For the three months ended September 2006, the Company reported a total of [...]

Austral Pacific Energy reports that the drilling of the first of the development wells in the Cheal oil field in New Zealand will commence in the second week of October. The well will be drilled from the Cheal B site where preparation for the drilling is nearing completion. Ensign Energy Services’ Rig 19 has been [...]

While gold is still an important contributor to South Africa’s exports and its overall economy, platinum and coal are continuing to consolidate their positions as the country’s two major commodities.
Figures from the Chamber of Mines show that sales of platinum group metals were worth around R38 billion (US$ 5.4 billion) last year, slightly ahead of [...]

An Eastern Kentucky coal company pleaded guilty to allowing operation of an overweight coal truck that was involved in a wreck that killed a Martin County preacher.
Ashland-based Appalachian Fuels initially pleaded not guilty to the charge stemming from the death of the Rev. Lonnie Preece but changed its plea to guilty after reaching a settlement [...]