Basin

EP Energy Corp. is tightening up its portfolio with a Texas-Louisiana two-stepper: buying in the Midland Basin and selling in the Ark-La-Tex Cotton Valley and South Louisiana Wilcox areas, the company said Thursday.

Executives at EOG Resources Inc. said 2013 was the company’s “best year on record,” with the Eagle Ford Shale driving a 40% year-over-year (y/y) increase in total crude oil and condensate production and overall production climbing more than 9%.

Heavy flooding in Colorado late last year did little to impact fourth quarter production for Noble Energy Inc.’s operations in the Denver-Julesberg (DJ) Basin, while volumes were driven higher by the Marcellus Shale during a quarter when the company spent heavily on onshore exploration and transportation costs.

QEP Resources Inc. subsidiary QEP Energy Co. is acquiring oil and gas properties in the Permian Basin for $950 million from EnerVest Ltd. and plans to sell noncore Midcontinent assets as it becomes more oil- and natural gas liquids-focused, the company said Monday.

The venerable Permian Basin, where production peaked in the 1970s, has come to life bigger and stronger, and is proving to still be the rock of choice for a lot of exploration and production (E&P) companies and oilfield service operators.

BHP Billiton Inc. is selling a portion of its Permian assets in the Delaware and Midland basins in two separate packages representing 250,000 acres combined, as it high-grades its West Texas holdings.

Wyoming state regulators are pursuing expanded rules related to emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOC) and methane, both primary components of natural gas. They are seeking tougher mandates for leak detection and repair (LDAR) programs and drawing kudos from environmentalists.

Pennsylvania State Universityresearchers who have been charged with monitoring 21 seismograph stations across the state are also reportedly studying the geological structure of the South Newark Basin. The $269,000 study is part of a federal program to research earthquakes nationwide, and was contracted to the university by theDepartment of Conservation and Natural Resources(DCNR) this summer, according to Philadelphia’sIntelligencernewspaper, which gathered the information through a series of right-to-know requests. In 2012 theU.S. Geological Survey(USGS) said the South Newark was one of three Mesozoic shale basins along the East Coast with the “most resource potential” for oil and gas producers (seeShale Daily,June 21, 2012). There is a 95% chance that at least 363 Bcf of undiscovered natural gas is locked in the formation, along with 1 million bbl of undiscovered natural gas liquids, USGS said. Following the USGS report, the General Assembly days later adopted a drilling moratorium for the South Newark Basin, which is located across upscale, ex-urban Philadelphia counties (seeShale Daily,July 3, 2012). The legislation forbid the state’sDepartment of Environmental Protectionfrom issuing well permits in the basin until DCNR completed a study of “the practical resource recovery implications” of the USGS report and the fiscal impact of oil and gas operations in the basin. Oil and gas operations in the South Newark Basin are already restricted by theDelaware River Basin Commission’s de facto moratorium on exploration and development (see Shale Daily,June 16, 2010).

The Bakken has the potential to fill all of the current added demand for sweet crude, but the Eagle Ford Shale and the Permian Basin will have something to say about that, a North Dakota official said.