Authorities were searching for clues to determine what caused a helicopter to crash Sunday afternoon near Houma, LA, killing eight men being transported to an oil and gas platform in the Gulf of Mexico. The Lafayette, LA-based PHI Inc. helicopter was taking the men to Shell Oil Co.‘s Cougar platform from Amelia, LA, said Shell spokesperson Robin Lebovitz. Amelia is 80 miles southwest of New Orleans. A spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board said the Sikorsky S-76C helicopter is thought to have crashed about seven minutes after it took off. A PHI pilot and a copilot died in the crash along with employees of The Moreno Group‘s Dynamic Industries and MMR Offshore Services Inc. Dynamic Industries and MMR perform contract work for Shell. A single survivor was being treated for severe injuries at the Ocshner Foundation Hospital in Jefferson, LA.

Comstock Resources Inc. said it would have a $450 million development and exploration budget this year to prove up its Haynesville Shale leasehold in Louisiana and to continue to develop its Cotton Valley leasehold in East Texas. About $399 million is set aside for the East Texas/North Louisiana properties alone. Included are plans to drill a total of about 76 wells (56 net), with 66 development wells (49.1 net) in the two-state region, which includes 43 (32 net) Haynesville Shale and five (4.5 net) Cotton Valley horizontal wells. Comstock also plans to spend $51 million in South Texas to drill 10 (6.8 net) wells this year. “Given lower natural gas prices, we plan to defer much of our Cotton Valley development drilling, which has been the largest contributor to our production growth in 2008,” said CEO M Jay Allison.

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