At the Marcellus Shale Coalition's Shale Gas Insight conference on Thursday, legislative leaders announced that several legislative proposals would be introduced in the fall. The proposals will address various points of contention caused by the activity surrounding the Marcellus Shale boom, The Times-Tribune reports.

The panel of lawmakers that made the announcement included Senate Republican Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, Representative Sandra Major and Representative Mike Hanna , according to the media outlet.

State Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Krancer delivered a keynote speech, which argued that the state government should play a more important role in regulating the oil industry than the federal government, the media outlet reports.

"The free-market system must work on everybody obeying the same rules," he said. "Cheaters cannot be allowed to gain an unfair advantage over those who devote the time, attention, resources, capital and effort to be compliant with regulations."

The West Virginia legislature has also taken an active role in regulating the Marcellus Shale by issuing an emergency regulation, according to The Associated Press. The new mandate obligates drillers to outline plans for responding to accidents, protecting land and managing the large volumes of water that will be encountered during drilling.  

North Dakota's top oil regulator recently stated that 33,000 wells need to be developed for the resources of the Bakken formation in the state to be fully utilized.

Lynn Helms, who is the director of the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources in Bismarck, spoke to members of the Minot Area Chamber of Commerce's Energy Committee on September 1, according to Minot Daily News.

At the speech, Helms said that the state has 6,600 wells capable of producing oil on any given day, and 6,000 that actually are producing, the media outlet reports. He said that 2,000 wells a year are expected to be drilled in North Dakota.

Accomplishing that goal will require 225 drilling rigs, which will subsequently create 47,000 jobs, according to the media outlet. Helms went on to state his opinion that oil-field employment is currently at around 35,000. Of those working as a result of oil fields, 28,000 work at the rigs and another 8,000 serve wells.

The United States Geological Survey performed a study in 2008 which concluded that the Bakken formation contains about 2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and more than 3 million barrels of untapped oil.  

Research firm Macquarie Equities Research reaffirmed its target share price of C$6.25 and its OUTPERFORM rating for Bellatrix (BXE:TSX). Macquarie gave the rating because Bellatrix is trading at a four times multiple of EV/DACF when the rest of the stocks in its group are trading at an average multiple of 5.5x. 

Bellatrix announced its Q2 results on September 2, which provided guidance on its 2012 operations. This guidance indicated daily average production of 17.0 thousand barrels of oil equivalent, plans to spend C$180 million and the company announced it will begin drilling its first horizontal Duvernay well in Q1.

The research firm originally estimated that production would average 15.7 thousand barrels of oil per day equivalent in 2012. This prediction was revised to 16.5 thousand barrels of oil per day equivalent from expected gains in efficiency.

Bellatrix opened at C$4.00 on September 7 after closing at C$3.98. The company recently reached a 52-week high of C$6.19 and a 52-week low of C$3.36.  

Investment dealer Raymond James upgraded its rating of exploration and production company Brigham (BEXP:NASDAQ) to Strong Buy from OUTPERFORM as emerging technologies and new techniques will improve the company's efficiency and reduce the time it needs to drill wells. The company's costs needed to drill wells will fall as it makes greater usage of zipper fracking. The combined benefits of lowered costs and expedited drilling operations will drive up the company's cash flow per debt-adjusted share.

Brigham has been utilizing "experimental" techniques for fracking and batch drilling. Raymond James predicts that the exploration and production company will increase its utilization of zipper fracs from 60 percent for this year to around 75 percent for 2012, with higher utilization in subsequent years. While three-well zipper fracs are currently in use, management has stated that zipper fracs involving four wells and even more are a possibility.

Raymond James increased its target price for Brigham to $40, which is a seven times multiple of the company's 2012 EBITDA. Through anticipated growth in cash flow and cost savings, the company hopes to be more resilient when market challenges arise.