The value of deals announced in the global oil and gas industry reached $33 billion during the first quarter of 2012, according to Eoin Coyne of London-based Evaluate Energy, which tracks worldwide mergers and acquisitions.

Unconventional resource assets drove deal-making activity in the first quarter of 2012 with North America accounting for 78% of all transactions. For all of 2011, 48% of all upstream M&A spending was in the US and Canada.

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Domestically, deal activity and valuations remain at healthy levels as buyers continue to execute on their strategic game plans and sellers adjust their portfolios toward optimal levels.

Revenues in the fourth quarter of 2011 fell 6% from the previous quarter but increased by 12% over the same quarter in 2010 for the group of publicly-traded, US-based companies tracked by Oil & Gas Journal and Oil & Gas Financial Journal.

Thanks to a million dollar match from Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Energy, the largest matching gift challenge in the history of the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma, and an additional national match opportunity from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation, nearly $3.8 million was raised in December and January to fight hunger in Oklahoma.

Houston-based NorTex Midstream Partners LLC, in cooperation with Atlanta’s Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), has launched a natural gas trading point in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.