Cuts

As it looks to protect its balance sheet in 2016, SM Energy Co. will focus its drilling and completion activity on the Permian Basin “to the maximum extent possible,” shifting to an oilier mix as it weathers the downturn in commodity prices.

Range Resources Corp. on Wednesday confirmed that it has laid off another 55 employees in response to the commodities downturn, announcing job cuts that primarily affect the workforce in Southwest Pennsylvania, where its core operations in the Marcellus Shale are located.

Responding to a $1 billion budget shortfall attributed to the crude oil price crash, North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple on Monday ordered across-the-board cuts for state agencies and dipped into the state’s reserve funds.

Prices for natural gas failed to strengthen throughout most of 2015, but the production decline registered year/year in November offers a sign, albeit small, that capacity may be shrinking as the year draws to an end.

More than 800 employees lost their jobs this week, with about 640 in Oklahoma City alone.

In an effort to revive his plan to levy new severance taxes on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and natural gas liquids (NGL), Ohio Gov. John Kasich has proposed giving 25% of the tax proceeds to 33 counties in the state’s Appalachian region, home to Ohio’s Utica Shale drilling.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is trying to block a Senate vote on President Obama’s pick to head the Department of Energy as a protest to proposed budget cuts to a nuclear processing facility in his home state.

After three years of exponential growth, the Marcellus Shale is showing signs of plateauing this year.

Encana Corp. is curtailing North American natural gas supply by up to 600 MMcf/d this year through cuts to capital investments and by shutting in production, the Calgary-based producer said Friday. The company already has taken action to “slow down or curtail” output from existing wells equal to 250 MMcf/d, said CEO Randy Eresman.