Bossier

Shale gas plays gained 14 active rigs to 964 rigs in the week ended April 29 over the previous week’s 950 rigs for a 1% increase, but the total was a 2% decrease from the 981 rigs active a month ago for the week ending April 1, according to NGI’s Shale Daily Unconventional Rig Count.

Active rigs in U.S. shale and tight sands basins gained 1% in the week ending April 1 to hit 981 rigs, up from 972 the previous week, according to NGI’s Shale Daily Unconventional Rig Count.

EXCO Resources Inc. has withdrawn its proposal to lease nearly 300 acres of borough-owned land for Marcellus Shale gas drilling operations in Ford City, PA, about 40 miles northeast of Pittsburgh in Armstrong County, the borough council said Tuesday.

Petrohawk Energy Corp. announced Tuesday that test wells using a new flow-channel fracturing technique called HiWAY — created by Houston-based Schlumberger Ltd. — yielded increased production and it plans to expand use of the technology.

SM Energy Co. said it plans to spend $1.04 billion next year, $830 million of that on drilling, mostly in the Eagle Ford Shale and the Bakken/Three Forks in the Williston Basin. The company’s putting its money in “all the right places,” according to an analyst at Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities Inc.

There were more than 14,000 oil and gas field operators in the United States last year, but the largest 100 of them as determined by total operated reserves accounted for nearly 90% of proved oil and gas reserves and included shale giant Chesapeake Energy Corp. and other companies active in the nation’s shale plays, according to a U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) report.

Midcontinent Express Pipeline’s (MEP) access to high-growth gas shale basins, such as the Barnett, Bossier, Woodford and Haynesville, plus long-term, fixed-fee capacity reservation contracts give the 505-mile pipeline a “stable outlook,” according to Fitch Ratings.

Midcontinent Express Pipeline’s (MEP) access to high-growth gas shale basins, such as the Barnett, Bossier, Woodford and Haynesville, plus long-term, fixed-fee capacity reservation contracts give the 505-mile pipeline a “stable outlook,” according to Fitch Ratings.

Chesapeake Energy Corp., long one of the most active natural gas drillers and producers in North America, is stealthily making a land grab to secure domestic oilfields, part of a long-range plan to rebalance a portfolio that now is 93% weighted to gas, CEO Aubrey McClendon said last week.