Copyright

With the clock ticking on an end-of-year deadline, a regional unit of the national Trust for Public Land (TPL) said Friday it is short the full $8.75 million it needs to meet a commitment to Plains Exploration and Production Co. (PXP) to acquire and retire oil and natural gas leases in the Wyoming Range.

Encana Corp. and liquefied natural gas (LNG) fueling solutions provider Ferus LNG Inc. said they will build a 190,000 liter per day LNG production facility near Grande Prairie, Alberta (AB).

Chevron Corp. subsidiary Chevron Canada Ltd. will acquire a 50% operating interest in the Kitimat, British Columbia (BC), liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project and proposed Pacific Trail Pipeline (PTP), and a 50% interest in 644,000 acres of petroleum and natural gas rights in the Horn River and Liard Basins in BC, and be a partner in the project and acreage with Apache Corp., the companies said Monday.

Dominion and Caiman Energy II LLC on Thursday said they are forming Blue Racer Midstream LLC, a $1.5 billion joint venture (JV) that would provide midstream services to natural gas producers operating in the Utica Shale in Ohio and portions of Pennsylvania.

Schlumberger Ltd. and Baker Hughes Inc. both expect fourth quarter profits to be lower than anticipated, in part because of a slowdown in North American drilling activity.

NFR Energy LLC has closed two private deals worth a combined $736 million to acquire assets in the Anadarko Basin and Eagle Ford Shale. The company also announced that First Reserve Corp. has increased its interest in the parent company, NFR Holdings LLC, to 99.7% and NFR is to be renamed Sabine Oil & Gas LLC.

SM Energy said next year it will spend 90% of its planned drilling and completions budget of $1.2 billion on its Eagle Ford, Bakken/Three Forks and Permian Basin programs and will grow overall production by 20%.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) said it conducted 31 onshore oil and natural gas auctions in fiscal year (FY) 2012, generating $233 million for U.S. taxpayers. In the FY 2012 lease sales, BLM estimated that it received bids on more than 1.4 million acres of public land in 1,707 parcels. It offered 2,315 parcels of land (covering six million acres) during the year, which is 32% more than in 2011 and 41% more than in 2010. The largest onshore oil and gas sale during FY 2012 was held in Billings, MT, in which 59 parcels covering 14,762 acres of public land brought in more than $36 million at an average price of $2,437/acre. BLM has scheduled 33 oil and gas lease sales in FY 2013, including in California, Colorado, the eastern states, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming and Alaska. Revenues from domestic output on public lands and federal offshore areas, totaling more than $12 billion this year, are shared among federal, state and tribal governments and represent one of the largest nontax sources of U.S. government funds. Revenue generated by BLM’s onshore parcels has more than tripled in the past three years, compared to the last 25 years, the agency said. Since 1988, the average price paid per acre was $55, while over the past three years the average has climbed to $210/acre. Moreover, the percentage of leases protested declined in FY 2012, continuing a trend that began in 2009. Protests were lodged on fewer than 18% of the parcels offered for sale during the year, the lowest percentage since 2003.

Schlumberger Ltd. and Baker Hughes Inc. both expect fourth quarter profits to be lower than anticipated, in part because of a slowdown in North American drilling activity.