2013

China National Oil Corp. (CNOOC) has agreed with BG Group to take an additional stake in the Queensland Curtis LNG (QCLNG) project in Australia for A$1.93 billion. CNOOC also agreed to take an additional 5 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of LNG from BG Group. The deal will make BG Group the largest supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to China, the company said.

The Bakken Shale and Three Forks formation in the Williston Basin in Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota contain a combined estimated 7.4 billion bbl of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil, 6.7 Tcf of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas and 530 million bbl of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas liquids (NGL), according to an assessment released by the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

Driven by steadily increasing midstream business, Atlas Pipeline Partners LLP’s (APL) natural gas volumes from onshore U.S. plays jumped by double digits in the first three months of this year from a year ago to average 1.03 Bcf/d, the operator said late Monday.

Range Resources Corp.’s management team is “convinced” that its best wells are still to come in the Marcellus Shale after some new wells punched into a previously drilled area with five years of production history were “substantially better than previous wells,” COO Ray Walker said.

ConocoPhillips leaseholds in the Eagle Ford and Bakken shales, along with the Permian Basin, together boosted their year/year output by 42% in the first quarter, management said Thursday.

Scaling back from original plans for a shift to more natural gas-fired generation, Nevada’s major utility, NV Energy, has submitted to state lawmakers a plan for dumping coal-fired generation, but so far the plan has stirred a political fight.

Subsidiaries of Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI) propelled the company to big profits during the first quarter of 2013, allowing it to raise its quarterly dividend 19% and aligning it for more than $12 billion of expansion and joint venture (JV) projects across North America.

The torrent of natural gas production coming out of North America’s shale plays reminds Jim Duncan, chief analyst and commodity market strategist at ConocoPhillips Gas & Power, of the opening lines of “A Tale of Two Cities,” Charles Dickens’ epic novel of the French Revolution.

The United States has 2,384 Tcf of technically recoverable natural gas, the Potential Gas Committee (PGC) and the American Gas Association (AGA) said last week. That’s more reserves than the PGC has calculated in its 48-year history and beats the previous high seen in 2010 by 486 Tcf.