East

Gastar Exploration Ltd. is selling about 76,000 net acres in Kingfisher and Canadian counties in Oklahoma for $62 million and also agreed to swap acreage with the undisclosed buyer so that both might concentrate their positions, the company said Tuesday.

Eddie LeBlanc will take over as CFO and executive vice president at SandRidge Energy Inc. on July 8, the operator said. LeBlanc formerly was CFO at East Resources Inc. from 2010 until 2013. Before that, he also served as CFO at PostRock Energy Corp. (2009-2010), Ascent Energy Co. (2003-2007), Range Resources Corp. (2000-2003), and Coho Energy Inc. (1995-1999). He has a bachelor of science in business administration from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and is a certified public accountant and chartered financial analyst. LeBlanc is moving into the office formerly occupied by James D. Bennett, who recently was named CEO (see Daily GPI, June 20). Bennett began as SandRidge’s CFO in January 2011 and he was named president in March.

Cash natural gas prices fell 6 cents Monday, led by multi-dollar declines at Northeast points. East points were soft as well, and California locations were mixed. At the close of futures trading, July had added 0.7 cent to $3.991 and August was higher by 0.6 cent to $4.009. July crude oil added $1.48 to $93.45/bbl.

To give the growing Permian Basin its full focus, Laredo Petroleum Holdings Inc. has agreed to sell all of its Granite Wash properties in the Anadarko Basin to affiliates of EnerVest Ltd. for $438 million in cash.

Enterprise Products Partners LP plans to “significantly” expand its crude oil storage and distribution infrastructure serving the southeast Texas refinery market, the partnership said Thursday. The move is in response to the displacement of imported waterborne crude by domestic supply from unconventional basins.

Unimin Corp. has opened a proppant distribution terminal in Navarre, OH, in Stark County to serve oil and natural gas operators in the Utica Shale.

As producers’ interest in the Permian Basin’s Cline Shale oil play continues to grow, Occidental Petroleum Corp. unit Centurion Pipeline LP is reactivating and expanding an existing pipeline system overlying the Cline, the company said.

An administrative law judge (ALJ) has turned down a request from two environmental groups to block Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co’s plans for an expansion of a natural gas pipeline in Pennsylvania, saying the groups “failed to show that they were likely to succeed on the merits or that they would suffer irreparable harm.”

Physical gas prices Wednesday gained on average by 11 cents overall, but if the volatile East is included, the rise was just under 18 cents. Gains were widespread with only a handful of points recording losses.