mineral exploration project – commodity prices – mining stock- trade and market

British oil giant BP PLC has signed several agreements potentially valued at up to $9 billion with Jordan to develop the country’s Risheh natural gas field along its border with Iraq.

Under the deals signed Sunday with Oil Minister Khaldoun Qteishat, BP will spend $237 million on the project’s preliminary exploration and assessment phase over three years.

Mesa Royalty Trust (MTR) offers pure natural gas income with no debt and no hedging, but limited trading liquidity. The practical alternatives for most investors are buy-recommended San Juan Basin Royalty Trust (SJT) and buy-recommended Hugoton Royalty Trust (HGT).

The U.S. consumes about 23 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of natural gas a year, according to the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Agency (EIA). The Potential Gas Committee (PGC), an organization headquartered at the Colorado School of Mines, put the country’s potential natural-gas resources at 1,836 TCF in a biennial assessment released in June.

Natural gas advanced to a nine-month high in New York as Caterpillar Inc. topped third-quarter profit estimates and said there were signs of an economic recovery.

Fuel use may increase as Caterpillar, the world’s biggest maker of bulldozers and excavators, said industrial production has improved and forecast a 3 percent expansion...

Pakistan Petroleum Ltd., the nation’s biggest gas producer, plans to increase output from the Manzalai area at Tal in the North West Frontier Province more than six fold this year.

“Production facilities will be in place by November and we hope to increase output to 250 million cubic feet a day,” Chief Executive Officer Khalid Rahman said in an interview in Karachi today. Production at the field is currently 39 million cubic feet a day.

Alberta’s natural gas industry is unlikely to return to its former prominence in the provincial economy, leaving a gap that will have to be filled through diversification, a report said Monday.

Already reeling from a precipitous drop in prices, the province’s natural gas industry faces major long-term challenges amid a glut of new supplies, according to the report by TD Economics.

PetroSA, South Africa’s state-owned oil company, may work with Petroleos de Venezuela SA to develop offshore natural gas reserves at the Deltana Block 1 under an agreement signed today.

PetroSA will also work with PDVSA to revive output at two declining oil fields in eastern Venezuela and is studying the possibility of developing an export terminal for compressed natural gas, Eulogio del Pino, vice president of exploration and production at the Venezuelan state oil company, told reporters today in Porlamar, Venezuela.

The Board of Golden Gate Petroleum Ltd. is pleased to announce that Kindee Oil and Gas Louisiana, GGP’s wholly owned subsidiary, has entered into an agreement to take a 20% working interest and operatorship in a new high impact oil and gas exploration project located onshore in south Louisiana, just a short drive from its Bullseye Project.