Depending

The U.S. oil rig count will continue to “drift slowly lower” in 2013 and 2014 in part because of technology and in part to balance the market, according to an updated analysis by Raymond James & Associates Inc.

CenterPoint Energy Inc., OGE Energy Corp. and ArcLight Capital Partners are forming a new midstream master limited partnership (MLP) that will start off with 8,400 miles of interstate and 2,300 miles of intrastate pipelines in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana, plus some other assets.

CenterPoint Energy Inc., OGE Energy Corp. and ArcLight Capital Partners are forming a midstream master limited partnership (MLP) that will start off with 8,400 miles of interstate and 2,300 miles of intrastate pipelines in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana, plus some other assets.

Abraxas Petroleum Corp. said a recent Eagle Ford Shale well has been performing better than expected, but its operations in the Williston Basin in North Dakota have been hampered by equipment troubles.

Natural gas prices in the various North American shale basins rose about 50 cents, or close to 20%, year-to-year from Jan. 1, 2012 to Jan. 1, 2013, moving mainly from the $2.80s to the $3.30s per MMBtu. At the same time, operating rigs in the same basins dropped 21%, according to surveys conducted throughout the year for NGI’s Shale Daily.

With shale gas the United States has an abundant natural resource that wasn’t on the industrial or economic development radar screen a mere five years ago. In other words, “a competitive edge is coming back to America,” Dow Chemical Co.’s Brian Ames told a Houston audience Monday.

Along with billions of dollars to make over its natural gas pipeline system, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) with 50,000 miles of distribution and transmission pipes is depending on all of its employees to speak up in identifying unsafe equipment, systems and processes, PG&E gas executive Nick Stavropoulos told NGI.

Texas could lose an estimated $4.4 billion in revenue from oil and gas sales taxes, depending on how a district court judge tailors his ruling on exempting oil and gas companies from paying the state sales taxes on extraction equipment.

Water reclamation services firm STW Resources Holding Corp. is planning pilot projects in the Permian Basin of West Texas to process produced oilfield water. The Midland, TX-based firm said its mobile processing unit will handle up to 500 barrels of water per day for up to 10 days per site. Some of the processed water could be used for hydraulic fracturing (fracking).