Drill

Denver-based natural gas producer Double Eagle Petroleum has no intentions to drill new wells this year in the Catalina Unit of Wyoming, long one of the company’s prized leaseholds. Instead, the junior independent will focus on lower risk nonoperated projects and review some offers to set up joint ventures, the CEO said Thursday.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is taking comments on a proposal to change its fee for permits to drill for oil and gas in the state. The move was prompted by the state’s “booming natural gas industry” in the Marcellus Shale.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is taking comments on a proposal to change its fee for permits to drill for oil and gas in the state. The move was prompted by the state’s “booming natural gas industry” in the Marcellus Shale.

Colombia’s Ecopetrol and Norway’s StatoilHydro ASA agreed to jointly drill three exploratory wells over the next two years in the deep waters of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico (GOM).

U.S. producers are planning to direct more capital spending to drill on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) and in onshore natural gas basins, but they are not averse to investing in alternative energy to help the country transition away from fossil fuels, according to Deloitte LLP’s annual oil and natural gas industry survey.

An ongoing legal dispute will delay Royal Dutch Shell’s plans to drill for oil and natural gas in the Beaufort Sea offshore Alaska through the rest of the year, the oil major said Friday.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at its Thursday meeting gave Arlington Storage Co. a waiver of the agency’s certificate requirements in order to drill up to two test wells and conduct related testing activity to determine the technical and economic feasibility of developing an underground gas storage facility in the Thomas Corners Field in Steuben County, NY [CP08-60]. Arlington Storage is a subsidiary of Inergy LP.

Apache Corp. this year will pull back on its drilling program in Alberta because of anticipated royalty regime changes, but don’t expect the Houston-based explorer to slow down much anywhere else. With record profits and record production in 2007, Apache said it is set to take on just about anything that comes its way.

FERC has approved Chestnut Ridge Storage LLC’s request for an exemption from the certificate requirements of the Natural Gas Act (NGA) to drill two test wells and perform other activities to determine the feasibility of developing a natural gas storage project in a storage field in southwestern Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia.