Last month, Mitsui and Mitsubishi, of Japan, and GDF Suez of France said they would join with Sempra Energy, based in San Diego, California, to build a $10 billion liquefied natural gas plant in Hackberry, Louisiana. They joined several other non-U.S. companies, including Korea Gas and GAIL, a large Indian utility, in trying to lock up prospective U.S. exports of abundant, low-cost shale gas.

Oil spills off the Texas coast have declined dramatically over the past decade, but the Texas General Land Office still responds to one or two a day in the Houston region, an area stretching from Galveston County to Matagorda Bay. "In the '90s, it wasn't anything to have three to eight spills a day," said Richard Arnhart, regional director for oil spill prevention and response for the Houston area. "Spills are down, which is a good thing."

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is analyzing the threat that hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, poses to drinking water, but that study won't be completed until 2016. That assessment came Tuesday from Jeanne Briskin, coordinator of hydraulic fracturing research at the EPA's Office of Research and Development.

Senior members of the German government have warned EU member states that German automakers could scale back or scrap production plans in their countries unless they support weakened carbon emissions rules, according to diplomatic sources. With EU governments and lawmakers aiming to finalize the rules next week, which most of the 27 member states back, Germany has stepped up the pressure on them to water down limits on vehicle emissions to protect the country's mighty car industry, particularly luxury makers such as BMW and Daimler.

Gov. Pat Quinn today signed sweeping legislation to regulate horizontal hydraulic fracturing, better known as "fracking." The move, which was expected, adds a bevy of restrictions and protections to an industry that while legal, was largely unregulated. Legislators, who overwhelmingly supported the bill, say they hope the new regulations will encourage the oil and gas industry to invest in Illinois, bringing jobs. Many oil and gas companies have held off on investing in drilling operations pending the outcome of proposed regulations.

Outgoing U.S. ambassador to Canada David Jacobson said Monday he is leaving the relationship between Canada and the United States in a very good state, but acknowledged a "very important decision" on the contentious Keystone XL pipeline looms. Jacobson, who leaves July 4 after a four-year stint, said in an interview with The Associated Press that the Obama administration knows how important the pipeline is to Canada but he won't speculate about how much it would damage the relationship should it not be approved.

The operator of the Athabasca Oil Sands Project is celebrating a decade of oil sands production and says it has pumped out about 500 million barrels of oil since production began in 2003. Shell started operations in the oil sands 10 years ago with just a handful of employees. The company has built up the business over the years and says it is capable of delivering over a quarter of a million barrels per day which provides about 17% of Canada's total oil production.

A senior Energy Department (DOE) official is warning House lawmakers of constraints on what he can discuss at Tuesday's Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on natural gas export proposals. Christopher Smith, the acting head of the DOE’s fossil energy office, said topics, including the merits of a key study informing decisions on industry export applications are off-limits. He's among the witnesses at a Tuesday hearing on controversial liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plans, among other topics.  

Repair crews have finished their work on a small defect in the Trans Mountain pipeline that prompted an oil spill earlier this week. Andy Galarnyk , spokesman for pipeline owner Kinder Morgan Canada, said Friday all the contaminated soil has been removed and the pipeline was expected to be back up to full operation by the end of the day. Galarnyk and the National Energy Board say the total volume of oil spilled was less than about six barrels -- or just under 1,000 litres. That's a minuscule amount compared to the 300,000 barrels of petroleum products the pipeline moves every day.

Safety on North Sea oil platforms is being compromised because the workforce is scared to speak out, a three-day conference to mark the 25th anniversary of Britain's worst offshore accident will be told on Tuesday. In addition, the dismantling of a specialist offshore safety division set up by the government after the Piper Alpha accident will make things worse and should be reversed, Jake Molloy, Aberdeen-based regional organiser of the RMT union, will warn. Oil & Gas UK, the lobby group for the major oil companies, has issued its latest annual health and safety report before the Piper 25 conference in Scotland, outlining a 48% reduction in the number of reportable oil and gas releases over the last three years, plus an all-time low in 2012 in the incidence of "over-three-day injuries".

The world is still on course for an international agreement to tackle global warming in 2015 despite days of bickering in Bonn over how decisions are made under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Russia – supported by Belarus and Ukraine – collapsed one of the key strands of the UN talks here this week after repeatedly complaining about how its objections to a deal renewing the Kyoto Protocol were ignored at last December’s climate summit in Doha. But UNFCCC executive secretary Christiana Figueres was "encouraged by the progress" made over the past two weeks, and said it laid the groundwork for this year's Warsaw climate summit in November and, ultimately, an agreement in 2015.