Drop

A lawsuit filed by a several Barnett Shale mineral owners accuses Chesapeake Energy Corp. of selling natural gas to an affiliate for a reduced price and basing royalty payments on those sales, which violates the terms of the lease agreements.

The deal that Chesapeake Energy Corp. made on Monday to sell half its leasehold in the Mississippian Lime was calculated at around $2,500/acre gross, or less than $1,000/acre net, not necessarily the price that the market had been expecting. The lower expected price may be attributed to several things, said analysts: foreign firms getting more savvy about undeveloped leaseholds, the value of the formation, or Chesapeake’s hurry to fix its balance sheet.

A group of environmental organizations has written to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Region 6 administrator alleging that politics and not science caused the agency to drop a water contamination case against Range Resources Corp. and calling for a resumption of legal action.

The number of original drilling permits issued in Texas during November declined from one year ago, as did the amount of natural gas produced from Texas wells during October compared to a year ago, according to Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) figures.

Ultra Petroleum Inc.’s Wyoming unit on Friday agreed to sell a liquids pipeline system and gathering facilities and certain associated real property rights in the Pinedale Anticline in Wyoming for $225 million. The buyer is Pinedale Corridor LP, a newly created unit of CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust, and the deal is expected to close later this month.

The onshore United States “remains the No. 1 place for investment” and the likelihood for future deal making “remains high,” according to Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. (TPH) CEO Bobby Tudor.

Natural gas cash values declined nearly across the board as physical gas traders used the screen’s prior-day drop for inspiration. Most points declined by a nickel or less and traders and analysts alike are having trouble pointing to any sort of rebound in the immediate future. Even what appeared to be a bullish storage injection report Thursday wasn’t what it seemed according to one NGI source. September futures traveled an up and down course on Thursday but ultimately closed the day’s regular session at $2.724, down 2.4 cents from Wednesday’s close.

Unconventional oil and gas drilling within the 13 plays tracked by NGI’s Shale Daily Unconventional Rig Count increased by one rig over the previous week to 890 rigs for the week ending Aug. 10. While some of the plays reporting increases or declines in activity were to be expected, others came as a bit of a surprise.

Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s U.S.-focused natural gas production is forecast to drop by 7% in 2013, bringing “to an end our likely unprecedented public company record of 23 consecutive years of gas production growth,” CEO Aubrey McClendon said during an earnings conference call last week.