Basin

What goes sideways and up at the same time? U.S. horizontal drilling rigs, especially in the Permian Basin and especially in Texas.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. unveiled a new unconventional resource within Oklahoma’s stacked reservoirs and offered up a renewed zeal to step up in the Powder River Basin, two “game-changers” that are expected to lift oil volumes within the natural gas-heavy portfolio.

Denver-based SM Energy Co. is expanding its footprint in the Midland Basin through the acquisition of 35,700 net acres in Howard and Martin counties in Texas. After closing, SM Energy will hold about 82,450 net acres in the sub-basin of the Permian.

Dallas-based midstream provider Lucid Energy Group II LLC has acquired Agave Energy Co., which owns and operates natural gas gathering and processing assets in the Delaware Basin of southeastern New Mexico and the Powder River Basin of eastern Wyoming.

The global oil supply is tightening, and markets should move closer to balance by the end of this year, but it’s too early for “any improvement in price” to affect exploration investments because operator confidence and balance sheets still need to be repaired, Schlumberger Ltd.’s operations chief said Tuesday.

In the latest survey of drilling activity tallied by Baker Hughes Inc. (BHI) and NGI, the Permian Basin’s Delaware sub-basin added four more rigs to end the week at 89 active. That likely doesn’t surprise those who attended the recent Enercom industry conference.

With a resource potential twice as high as originally estimated, WPX Energy Inc. is on a mission to build its Permian Basin portfolio even more, particularly in the Delaware Basin, the company’s CEO said Thursday.

U.S. Energy Corp. (USEG) plans to dip its toes in the Niobrara-Denver Julesburg (DJ) Basin, with a $9.6 million deal to participate in development in the Wattenberg Field in Weld County, CO.

A final environmental impact statement (FEIS) was released for public comment last Thursday that would allow oil/natural gas drilling on up to nearly 120,000 acres of U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM)-managed lands in two counties in northern Utah in the Uintah Basin. BLM noted that mitigation will be a critical part of any final decision on the sizable project.