Effort

Devon Energy Corp. is selling its assets in the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS) and the Utica Shale, in an effort to raise new venture capital and focus on opportunities in the Permian Basin, Mississippian Lime and the Niobrara formation.

Devon Energy Corp. is selling Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS) assets in Louisiana and Mississippi, offering about 297,000 net acres (nearly 95% undeveloped) within the unconventional oil play, and production of about 600 b/d, according to the offering by Scotia Waterous (USA) Inc.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Region 6 office in Dallas is holding a volunteer effort through Feb. 28 to train exploration and production workers about health and safety issues at sites in Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. The National Service, Transmission, Exploration & Production Safety Network, commonly known as STEPS, is participating. Participating companies may choose to hold training events at their work sites with OSHA materials. A commitment form and training tools to conduct job site inspections is available online through the OSHA Education Center at the University of Texas Arlington website.

An Ohio judge has ruled that landowners who signed oil and natural gas leases with Chesapeake Exploration LLC have the right to accept better offers from competitors, as long as the original lease is in the primary term, drilling hasn’t started and Chesapeake fails to match the offer.

As part of its ongoing effort to address coordination in the natural gas and power industries, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) staff said it will hold a technical conference on Feb. 13 at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, DC, to focus on information-sharing and communications issues between natural gas and electric power industry companies. The technical conference is the first of two conferences that FERC directed staff in mid-November (see Daily GPI, Nov. 19) to convene to address common issues that were raised in nearly every region in August (see Daily GPI, Aug. 31; Aug. 29; Aug. 21; Aug. 24). In advance of the conference, parties are asked to file comments on specific questions related to information-sharing and communications (www.ferc.gov/EventCalendar/Files/20121207134434-AD12-12-000TC1.pdf). The conference is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. and end at 4 p.m. EST.

In an effort to avoid having to restart the process from square one, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) will file for a 90-day extension on Thursday to finalize rules governing high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF).

Finger pointing has begun among the federal, state and industry stakeholders in the ongoing effort to determine whether natural gas drilling, and specifically hydraulic fracturing (fracking), near Pavillion, WY, has contaminated groundwater.

Finger pointing has begun among the federal, state and industry stakeholders in the ongoing effort to determine whether natural gas drilling in and around Pavillion, WY, has impacted ground water supplies.

A key legislator in Pennsylvania said he plans to introduce a bill to create a nine-member Marcellus Shale Health Advisory Panel in the near future, a move suggested in the past by both Gov. Tom Corbett and the Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission (MSAC).