Costs

Dallas-based midstream services provider Lucid Energy Group has secured an equity commitment for up to $250 million from Magnetar Capital to support Lucid’s proposed natural gas gathering and processing system in the Delaware Basin, a sub-basin of the Permian. “This important transaction, combined with the existing support of EnCap Flatrock Midstream, allows us to continue to aggressively expand our Delaware Basin franchise and offer large-scale, best-in-class service to producers in the region,” said Lucid CEO Mike Latchem. Lucid provides midstream services to producers in the Permian’s Midland and Delaware basins and is the largest privately held natural gas processor in the Permian with more than 930 MMcf of capacity in operation or under construction, and more than 3,600 miles of operational pipeline assets. Lucid in September 2016 acquired Agave Energy Co., the owner and operator of gas gathering and processing assets in the Delaware.

Researchers from Stanford University said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) overestimated how much it would cost the oil and gas industry to monitor and repair methane leaks at its facilities, and how many leaks would be found, when it updated embattled rules governing emissions last year.

WPX Energy Inc., with a plethora of opportunities across the U.S. onshore, is evaluating a midstream infrastructure buildout in one of its key areas, the Permian Basin, to expand crude oil gathering and natural gas processing as opportunities grow, the management team said Thursday.

Natural gas and wind are tops as the lowest cost technology options for new electricity generation in the United States when costs, public health and environmental benefits are considered, according to researchers at the University of Texas at Austin (UT).

FERC is considering modifications to its policies for evaluating oil pipeline index rate changes and data reporting requirements that would make it easier for shippers to challenge rates that they believe exceed industry costs.

New technologies are reducing costs and raising recoveries, but as pressure pumper Liberty Oilfield Services demonstrated Tuesday in Denver, innovation has not only improved equipment, but it’s helping to assuage relationships with nearby communities.

Oil and natural gas industry costs have improved sharply since late 2014, but overall supply costs remain high, suggesting that it’s going to take stronger commodity prices to sustain global operations, BMO Capital Markets analysts said in a new report.

Spectra Energy Corp. said this week that it expects to spend up to $100 million assessing and repairing the damage caused by an explosion and fire that happened in April on a portion of Texas Eastern Transmission’s (Tetco) Penn-Jersey system (see Shale Daily,April 29).

U.S. onshore results may have been lost in the weak second quarter performance by Chevron Corp., but the No. 2 U.S. producer had a strong story to tell about its onshore portfolio, particularly the venerable Permian Basin.