CONOCOPHILLIPS

Gas prices on average have gained 12 cents a gallon in just the last month, the AAA reports. At an average $3.51 a gallon, that's 38 cents above 2011. What's happening?

With the price of natural gas so low, BG Group has become the latest company to scale back their shale natural gas production in the United States, in what could be the start of a temporary retreat from the gas industry in the country.

In the next year, ConocoPhillips expects to increase its Arctic footprint thank to a partnership with Singapore's Keppel Offshore and Marine.

The companies expected to see active trade Wednesday are: Apple, Boeing, CA, Xerox, Automatic Data Processing, Netflix, General Dynamics, SanDisk Corp, Hess Corp, Abbott Laboratories, Abbott Laboratories, ConocoPhillips and Murphy Oil Corp.

ConocoPhillips, the third largest energy company in the U.S., is expected to post higher fourth-quarter earnings as soaring crude oil prices offset big losses anticipated in the company's refining operations.

The Obama Administration rejected the Keystone oil pipeline on Wednesday, a move that Republicans decried for sacrificing jobs and energy security in order to shore up the president's environmental base before elections.

ConocoPhillips is said to be in talks with the sub-continent oil company, and could sell some of its land leases in South Texas.

The head of Canada's most storied pension fund wants rivals to be partners as debt-laden governments offload assets, and says a recent bid with two other pension funds for the nation's leading stock market operator is a good start.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that his country would not recognize a ruling by a World Bank tribunal in a multibillion-dollar arbitration case with Exxon Mobil.

Venezuela's oil minister said on Saturday he does not expect a ruling in World Bank arbitration with the Exxon Mobil Corp. this year, after another tribunal awarded the U.S.-based company $908 million last week.

A Chinese court is allowing a $78 million lawsuit brought against ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) to move forward, after having dismissed a similar lawsuit in 2011, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Friday. The action is being brought by local aquaculture farmers who believe their sea cucumbers were killed by the oil spill.

An arbitration panel has awarded U.S. oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp $908 million in compensation for Venezuela's 2007 nationalization of its assets, less than 10 percent of what the company sought in a long legal battle with the OPEC nation.

An international arbitration panel has awarded the U.S. oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. $908 million in compensation for Venezuela's 2007 nationalization of assets, less than 10 percent of what the company sought in a dispute.

China National Offshore Oil Corp. announced that it intends to set up an environmental protection fund of its own, months after ConocoPhillips said in September it intended to compensate local Chinese communities and pay for environmental damage following a spill at one of the company's offshore rigs in Northern China.

Refineries in the Northeast are closing their doors, and as a result, more than half of the area's petroleum refining capacity will be reduced. The reduction is likely to be problematic for ultra-low sulfur diesel, gasoline, heating oil and jet fuel supplies.

You can rage, rage against gas prices, or you can align your interest with oil producers/refiners by considering shares in an oil play. And here are five.

Interest in arctic oil has climbed in recent years when industry, government and third party researchers independently made realizations that the amount of recoverable world-class oil deposits was greater than previously thought. That has yet to be properly tested with a drill bit.

Environmentalists fear oil prospecting in the region will lead to oil discoveries, prompting greater interest in the Arctic oil found underneath sensitive and hard-to-reach areas like ice-locked seas, and further endangering regional ecosystems.

S&P 500 stock buybacks increased for the ninth consecutive quarter. As share count begins to decline, some earnings-per-share impacts are expected for the fourth quarter.

U.S. stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Wall Street on Tuesday, with futures for the S&P 500 up 0.5 percent, Dow Jones futures up 0.3 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.4 percent at 0819 GMT.

ConocoPhillips stole the show at Wednesday's Gulf of Mexico Lease sale with the largest bid an oil company has ever made for a single tract of Gulf real estate.