Emerging

The North American drilling services market is tight and getting tighter, squeezed by increased activity in liquids-heavy and emerging shale oil plays, Baker Hughes Inc. CEO Chad Deaton said Tuesday.

Targeting natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGL) production from shale plays in Texas, Louisiana and Pennsylvania; and conventional production from the Gulf of Mexico, Crosstex Energy Inc. unit Crosstex Energy LP has completed and brought online two expansions of its natural gas gathering system in the Barnett Shale in North Texas and has reactivated its Eunice NGL fractionator in south central Louisiana.

With the federal government restricting access to traditional oil and natural gas plays, resources from emerging shale plays are picking up some of the slack, said the head of the American Petroleum Institute (API).

With the federal government restricting access to traditional oil and natural gas plays, resources from emerging shale plays are picking up some of the slack, said the head of the American Petroleum Institute (API).

Natural gas industry stakeholders are turning up the volume on the clean transportation market as an increasingly realistic outlet for the gusher of gas that is emerging from North America’s burgeoning shale plays. This was made clear during the recent winter meetings of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) in Washington, DC.

Mexico is emerging as an outlet for North America’s abundant shale gas production, according to a Canadian survey of North American “continental market” prospects.

Mexico is emerging as an outlet for North America’s abundant shale gas production, according to a Canadian survey of North American “continental market” prospects.

Cash traders appeared to have no concern about Tropical Storm Richard possibly surviving an overland passage and emerging into the southern Gulf of Mexico this week. What mattered more to them was a persistent lack of substantive weather-based demand (either heating or cooling); storage inventories poised to hit another all-time high level; and the previous day’s screen plunge. The physical market recorded large double-digit declines across the board Friday.

Natural gas explorers that hope to tap into Quebec’s emerging Utica Shale and St. Lawrence River lowlands face more scrutiny going forward, Environment Minister Pierre Arcand said last week.