Basin

A bill introduced Tuesday in the U.S. House of Representatives calls for the federal government to improve restoration and conservation efforts in the Delaware River Basin through the use of public-private partnerships and coordination among basin stakeholders.

The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) unveiled an updated modeling tool for testing water management scenarios, but a spokesman for the agency said it was unlikely to be used for potential oil and natural gas development in the basin, which is currently banned.

A bill filed last week in the North Carolina General Assembly would ban forced pooling and require landowner permission for oil and gas operations that disturb the surface of the land.

A new release in the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Professional Paper series provides an in-depth analysis showing that oil and natural gas resources in the Appalachian Basin remain significant and are sufficient to continue contributing meaningfully to the nation’s fossil fuel needs.

Taking into account depressed commodity prices, Energen Corp. will focus its drilling efforts this year on its Midland Basin Wolfcamp acreage while holding back on the higher-cost Delaware Basin Wolfcamp, CEO James McManus told analysts following the company on Friday. Planned capital spending is lower than last year and is to be bolstered by proceeds from an asset sale.

Gastar Exploration Inc. on Monday cut its budget for the third time since September, saying it will now spend $103 million this year, as its portfolio is exposed to falling oil and natural gas prices in the Appalachian Basin and the Midcontinent.

Bitter cold swept across much of the country and well into the South last week, bringing consequences to producing regions as well as market areas. As has been the case during past cold snaps, producers, pipelines and distribution companies held their own, for the most part.

While it plans to exit the oil/natural gas exploration/production (E&P) sector, MDU Resources Group Inc. is still focused on ongoing drilling programs and will begin hydraulically fracturing (fracking) wells in the Paradox Basin, executives said.

Exactly a year after it said parts of its 2.5 million acres in the Midcontinent could be up for sale, a Houston-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. (Oxy) spokesperson refused to comment Thursday on rumors in North Dakota that Oxy was selling all of its more than 330,000 acres in the Williston Basin for an asking price of $3 billion.