BP to buy BHP's US shale oil and gas assets for $10.5bn

As it stated in BP has agreed to buy US shale oil and gasfields from the Anglo-Australian miner BHP for $10.5bn (£8bn), in the UK firm's biggest acquisition in nearly two decades. After the deal is completed BP's US production will climb from 744,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day to 885,000 boe/d. BP said it was making "conservative assumptions" about how much oil and gas could be pumped to begin with, given regional bottlenecks around infrastructure such as pipelines. The scale of BP's deal dwarfs its recent $200m investment in Europe's biggest solar company and its £130m purchase of the UK's largest electric car charging network. The company's last biggest transaction was when it bought the American oil company Atlantic Richfield in 1999.

These six species are about to be sacrificed for the oil and gas industry

Republicans in the western United States have been trying to whittle away the Endangered Species Act (ESA) since Donald Trump took office. Here's how certain species might be affected:Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPAThe polar bear – and other threatened arctic species – face perhaps the greatest risk under Trump's proposed approach. A defense-spending rider would prevent a listing for 10 years, while the interior department's proposed rules mean any protections would be weighed against potential oil and gas profits. Threatened coho are more likely to lose out with the new rules, and they're competing with two endangered species of sucker fish upstream. Holistic management of threatened species could help, but under a case-by-case approach, coho aren't likely to make gains.

Texas Petro Index shows strong oil and gas economy

according to Texas Petro Index shows strong oil and gas economyLarry Zelisko | Abilene Reporter-NewsThe Texas upstream oil and gas economy is expanding at a remarkable rate, according to Karr Ingham, developer of the Texas Petro Index. The Texas Petro Index — a measuring device tracking growth rates and business cycles in the Texas oil and gas industry — increased for the 19th straight month in June. "We've seen extraordinary expansions in Texas oil and gas activity over the 23-year history of the Texas Petro Index," Ingham said in a news release. Natural gas production has grown more slowly, mostly because producers are not actively drilling for natural gas in Texas. Over 35 percent of Texas natural gas production is classified by the Railroad Commission as "casinghead gas," or gas associated with crude oil production, he said.

collected by :Frank Ithan