2009

Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) services that have been under pressure in North America’s natural gas basins now are seeing some of the same impacts in the liquids-rich basins, Schlumberger Ltd.’s CEO said Friday.

Red Leaf Resources Inc. has entered into a joint venture (JV) with a U.S. subsidiary of France’s Total SA to develop oil shale in the Uinta Basin in Utah.

The Houston-based arm of energy giant BP plc Tuesday said it was leasing thousands of acres in a yet-to-be explored area of northeastern Ohio’s Utica/Point Pleasant Shale formation near the Pennsylvania border for future natural gas and oil production.

Companies participating in NGI’s quarterly North American natural gas marketer survey reported nearly the same results in 4Q2011 as in the year-ago period, and a 1% decline in full-year 2011, compared with 2010. read more

February natural gas put in another low Thursday that had not been seen since Sept. 8, 2009 when October futures were as low as $2.628. The day’s price drivers included the release of storage data by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) that showed a 95 Bcf pull from inventories, well off the seasonal pace but greater than what the market was expecting.

West Virginia has more taxes and fees on natural gas production than most of the 18 other gas-producing states included in an analysis prepared for a West Virginia Legislature subcommittee by the Marshall University Center for Business and Economic Research. However, it isn’t clear if taxes are hampering development of the state’s Marcellus Shale, the analysts said.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) said Tuesday it is reorganizing, a move designed to assist regulators with a burgeoning workload from the state’s booming oil and gas industry in the Marcellus Shale.

Natural gas production in the northeastern United States has grown rapidly since 2009, thanks to increased drilling in the Marcellus Shale, according to data released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) Tuesday.

The cloud of confusion surrounding the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) recent estimate of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGL) contained in the Marcellus Shale — and the apparent differences between the USGS assessment and previous estimates — cleared somewhat Friday as the agency clarified its methodology.