Thursday, 29 October 2026

Expand Energy Corp. curtailed some production in the third quarter, dropping a rig in Northeast Appalachia and a completion crew in the Haynesville because of weaker natural gas prices, according to Oil & Gas Journal.

The company reduced its activity from around 12 rigs to 10 in what Oil & Gas Journal described as direct acknowledgement that the market was weakening.

Expand also pushed about nine turn-in-lines out of the third quarter, waiting to determine the optimal time to bring them online, according to Oil & Gas Journal.

Eni awarded Saipem two offshore drilling contracts, for work offshore Cyprus and Ghana, worth a combined $121 million, according to Oil & Gas Journal.

The Cyprus contract covers drilling within the Republic of Cyprus's Exclusive Economic Zone using the Saipem 10000 drillship. Operations under that contract are expected to begin between November 2026 and January 2027, Oil & Gas Journal reported.

The Ghana contract involves the Scarabeo 9 semi-submersible rig for drilling offshore Ghana.

US commercial crude oil inventories, excluding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, fell by 1.9 million barrels in the week ended Oct. 23, 2026, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) cited by Oil & Gas Journal.

The draw left stocks 4% below the five-year average for that time of year, according to the EIA.

QatarEnergy will buy 2 million tonnes of LNG annually from Corpus Christi in Texas, with deliveries anticipated to begin in 2031.

The agreements also cover 2 million tonnes of LNG annually from Cheniere's Sabine Pass facility in Louisiana. Of that Sabine Pass supply, 1 million tonnes annually is contingent on a positive final investment decision for the expansion's first phase.

A decade-long review led by Lake Superior State University researchers documented 6,453 reported oil spill incidents across the Great Lakes between 2015 and 2024.

Of those incidents, 3,654 were reported in U.S. waters and 2,799 in Canadian waters.

Fewer than 6% of the incidents involved volumes above 500 liters, yet those larger spills accounted for most of the total reported oil volume, according to the review.

The researchers flagged gaps in the underlying records. Only 35% of U.S. incidents included a reported spill volume, and Canadian records held no volume data before 2023, which limited comparisons and estimates of the total amount of oil released.