Consent

Thanks to the Marcellus Shale, Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. recently completed the best quarter in its history on an operational and financial basis, said CEO Dan Dinges. The company is adding a sixth rig in the play as it anticipates multiple infrastructure projects will come online in the months ahead, increasing the ability to get its gas to markets.

Almost half of the drilling in the U.S. onshore now is being done on multi-well pads, further moving attention from the rig and well count and more to horizontal footage drilled and the number of fractured stages per well, Halliburton Co. CEO Dave Lesar said last week.

Baker Hughes Inc. and Halliburton Co. said last week they have received civil investigation demands (CID) from the Department of Justice (DOJ) to provide documents and information on their pressure pumping businesses.

Kathryn Klaber, who has helmed the industry-led Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC) as CEO for almost four years, is stepping down. She was selected to lead the newly formed organization in late 2009 and is expected to help in the transition over the next few months. “Pennsylvania is now producing nearly 10% of the nation’s natural gas,” Klaber said. “Our industry’s work has been described as ‘revolutionary’ and ‘game-changing.’ The work of the MSC, collaborating with public officials, has helped create the climate for growth of an industry that has delivered on its promises to create American jobs, increase our energy security, while holding safety and environmental performance as paramount.” The oil and gas industry over the past few years “has faced and collectively overcome a host of challenges,” said MSC Chair Dave Spigelmyer, who is Chesapeake Energy Corp. vice president of government affairs. “Katie’s results-oriented leadership and proven ability to identify and collaboratively tackle these challenges has brought incredible value to our industry.”

With solid second quarter results in the books, Encana Corp. is taking a look at its entire North American portfolio and has begun putting a “new emphasis on our portfolio of emerging liquids plays,” newly installed CEO Doug Suttles told investors last week.

Nabors Industries Inc., the largest onshore drilling fleet operator and the biggest supplier of pressure pumping equipment, is not optimistic about seeing gains in the U.S. oil or gas patch through the rest of this year, CEO Tony Petrello said Wednesday.

After gaining access earlier this year to a big bundle of onshore and offshore opportunities in the United States, Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. now is reworking its strategy to relieve the cost burden and increase production, top executives said last week.

With domestic natural gas production reaching an “unprecedented” level, net imports of gas into the United States in 2012 fell 23% while total gas exports increased about 8%, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Competition from U.S. exporters in Ontario and Quebec has a silver lining for sponsors of liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects on the Pacific Coast of British Columbia (BC).