There’s an app available for iPhones that’s popular in Japan. It alerts you seconds to minutes in advance of an earthquake. That’s the sort of app that A&D professionals would find enormously interesting, presuming one could be built to warn of seismic shifts in commodity prices.

Gyrating oil, sagging NGL and rock-bottom natural gas prices have combined to depress 2012’s deal market. “This year, we’ve had $40 billion in E&P asset sales,” said Scott Richardson, co-founding principal, RBC Richardson Barr, who participated in a roundtable discussion at Hart Energy’s 11th ...