Earlier

Coordinated regulation of oil and gas development is needed in Colorado, but no new laws are needed to achieve such an approach, according to a report from a task force created earlier this year by Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Oneok Partners LP said it will invest $340-360 million by the first quarter of 2014 to construct a gas gathering and processing plant and related infrastructure in the Cana-Woodford Shale in Oklahoma.

Proposed federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) rules on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) violate the spirit of an earlier order by President Obama that called for the “least burdensome” regulations to be applied to allow for predictability and certainty, Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead told U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in a letter last Thursday.

It’s early days in Chevron Corp.’s shale natural gas and oil program, but it is “an area of significant long-term growth” with opportunities in the United States, Canada, Argentina, China and Europe — in liquids and dry gas — an executive said during the company’s analyst day Tuesday.

BP plc still faces legal hurdles, but it jumped a big one after clinching a hard-fought settlement earlier this month with the Plaintiff’s Steering Committee (PSC) to resolve a “substantial majority of legitimate economic loss and medical claims” from the Macondo well blowout two years ago in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. The PSC acts on behalf of thousands of individuals and businesses in the multi-district litigation (MDL) proceedings pending in New Orleans (MDL 2179).

Ohio Gov. John Kasich will reportedly unveil a proposal this week to restructure state taxes on oil and gas drilling and pass the savings along to Ohioans in the form of a personal income tax cut, but conventional oil drilling and small producers of natural gas would not be affected.

Apache Corp. saw its net income jump 75% in 4Q2011 from a year earlier, lifted by higher output and strong crude prices. The producer plans to drill up to 30% more wells this year than in 2011, when it drilled 1,100 gross wells; more than half are to be in the Permian and Anadarko basins. In 4Q2011 total gas output rose 3.2%; oil output climbed 4.3%. North American gas volumes increased to 1.494 Bcf/d in 4Q2011 from 1.432 Bcf/d in 4Q2010, and from 1.478 Bcf/d in 3Q2011. Net profits totaled $1.17 billion ($2.98/share) in 4Q2011, compared with $670 million ($1.77) in 4Q2010. Revenue rose 25% to $4.3 billion.

Freeport LNG Development LP — which is among the U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) regasification terminal flip-floppers — has asked FERC to modify an authorization granted earlier this year for expansion of its regasification facilities. As with some other Gulf Coast LNG terminals, operators are now more intent on exporting LNG than importing it.

Williams Partners LP has agreed to acquire the Laser Northeast Gathering System and other midstream businesses from Delphi Midstream Partners LLC for about $750 million. Laser is composed of 33 miles of 16-inch diameter gas pipeline and associated gathering facilities in Susquehanna County, PA, as well as 10 miles of gathering pipeline in southern New York. The acquisition is supported by existing long-term gathering agreements that provide acreage dedications and volume commitments. As production in the Marcellus Shale increases, the Laser system is expected to reach a capacity of 1.3 Bcf/d, said Williams Partners, which plans to fund the purchase with $300 million in cash and 7.5 million common units. The deal, which the partnership said it earlier was pursuing (see Shale Daily, Dec. 5), is subject to customary regulatory approvals.