Certainly

Exploration and production companies have heeded the call to improve transparency and institute better practices, but there’s more to do to address the concerns of stakeholders in the shale plays, a Range Resources Corp. executive said last week.

Marcellus Shale production is strong and activity is high, but because it’s a “tough environment to construct in,” Williams plans to reduce its capital spending in the play through the rest of this year, an executive said Tuesday.

The “brute force” drilling process that unlocked North America’s shale deposits won’t easily be transferred overseas, Schlumberger Ltd. COO Paal Kibsgaard said Wednesday.

North Dakota’s oil patch accounted for less than 1% of total U.S. crude oil production three years ago, but today the state is pumping close to 6% of total crude output, thanks to the formidable Bakken-Three Forks shale region, the state’s Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) is reporting.

A “single event” might push natural gas prices to the $8/Mcf level in 2011, but several events in combination “could certainly rally prices,” a trio of Barclays Capital analysts said Tuesday.

Based almost entirely on the previous day’s futures spike of 42.7 cents — certainly not on a continuation of meek weather-based demand — prices rebounded at nearly all points Friday by double-digit amounts.

Climate change legislation approved last month by the House Energy and Commerce Committee would likely be neutral for natural gas but would certainly make renewable energy technologies big winners. Coal would be the loser, according to analysts at Raymond James & Associates Inc.

Climate change legislation approved last week by the House Energy and Commerce Committee would likely be neutral for natural gas but would certainly make renewable energy technologies big winners. Coal would be the loser, according to analysts at Raymond James & Associates Inc.

The Arkoma Basin has become a “tale of two shales” — it’s not quite the best of times yet, but it’s certainly not the worst. By 2010, natural gas volumes from the Fayetteville and Woodford shales may approach 970 MMcfe/d, a significant jump from this year’s expectation of 469 MMcfe/d.