Earnings

WPX Energy has achieved its second exploratory success of the year, this time from the Mancos Gallup Sandstone formation in the oil window of Northwest New Mexico’s San Juan Basin, company management said during an earnings conference call.

Building midstream infrastructure in the Marcellus Shale to keep up with growing natural gas volumes was a challenge in the first quarter, MarkWest Energy Partners LP CEO Frank Semple said Thursday.

Newfield Exploration Co. is “right where we want to be toward execution of our 2013-2015 plan,” CEO Lee Boothby said Wednesday during an earnings conference call in which management talked of a “surge” in Eagle Ford Shale production and the rising prominence of the Cana-Woodford Shale in the company’s liquids-focused portfolio.

Denver-based DCP Midstream Partners LP announced a $626 million dropdown from DCP Midstream of an additional 47% interest in its Eagle Ford joint venture, bringing its ownership to 80%. It’s the largest dropdown in the history of the partnership.

Gulfport Energy Corp., which released its 4Q2012 and full-year operations results on Wednesday, reported strong natural gas growth in the onshore, with falling oil and natural gas liquids (NGL) output.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp. is doing “a lot” of experimentation in the U.S. onshore to determine how best to drill unconventional wells to ensure optimized estimated ultimate recoveries (EUR). What the management knows for sure is that the bigger the hydraulic fractures (fracks) the more a well can recover, said CEO Al Walker.

Pioneer Natural Resources Co. has signed an agreement with Sinochem Petroleum USA LLC, a U.S. subsidiary of China’s Sinochem Group, to sell 40% of its interest in 207,000 net acres leased by the Pioneer in the horizontal Wolfcamp Shale in the southern portion of the Spraberry Trend Area Field for $1.7 billion.

Atlas Pipeline Partners LP (APL) on Monday agreed to pay $600 million for all of the operating assets of privately held Cardinal Midstream LLC, which would give it cryogenic processing plants, associated gathering pipelines and a gas treatment business that includes facilities in the Woodford, Eagle Ford, Haynesville and Fayetteville shales, as well as the Granite Wash and Avalon formations.

In reporting a sharp uptick in quarter-over-quarter earnings Monday, PG&E Corp. CEO Anthony Earley predicted that its San Francisco-based utility, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., will resolve pending regulatory and enforcement issues related to the fatal San Bruno natural gas transmission pipeline rupture and explosion two years ago.