Data

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is proposing expanding the geographic coverage of its monthly natural gas production survey and adding state-level data on crude oil and lease condensate production to better reflect the rapid growth and shifting location of gas and crude production.

Oil and natural gas companies that have provided data on upstream expenditures since 2000 spent more on exploration and development last year and less on property acquisitions, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said Friday.

May natural gas is expected to open 3 cents higher Wednesday morning at $4.77 as near-term weather forecasts are seen making timely additions to storage problematical. Overnight oil markets were mixed.

Oil and gas companies are claiming too many trade secret exemptions in FracFocus disclosures of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing (fracking), and the registry contains several errors, according to a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) task force charged with reviewing the website.

Groundwater levels are impacted by coalbed methane (CBM) production, decreasing as production increases, and vice versa, according to a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) report that analyzes data from 62 groundwater monitoring wells in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin (PRB).

The Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) said it plans to hire an in-house seismologist, presumably to study the seismic events that have occurred in the Barnett Shale in North Texas and the Eagle Ford Shale in the southern part of the state.

It’s not how many rigs there are in the shale patch; it’s what they’re doing. As drilling productivity continues to climb, the industry has realized a simple rig count is a poor indicator of future production. Now the Energy Information Administration (EIA) is monitoring and reporting on drilling productivity.

Natural gas production in the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Other States category, which includes Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia — and, with them, some of the nation’s booming shale plays — reached 26.37 Bcf/d in July, compared with 26.13 Bcf/d in June and 22.67 Bcf/d in July 2012, EIA said Monday.

Shale gas production activities in the Barnett Shale have not resulted in volatile organic compound (VOC) exposures great enough to pose a health concern for area residents, according to a new study of the region’s air quality.