Exit

JPMorgan Chase & Co. said Friday it is planning to exit the physical commodities business, including its remaining holdings of commodities assets and its physical trading operations.

Onshore drilling activity in the United States and Canada has begun to pick up, with excess pressure pumping capacity “being absorbed ever so slowly,” the top financial officer for Baker Hughes Inc. said this week.

Calgary-based Talisman Energy Inc. is considering a plan to exit shale development in Poland, a move that helps the company focus elsewhere but is also a blow to what was once considered Europe’s best source for shale natural gas and a hedge against pipeline gas supplies from Russia.

Elliott Associates LP, a hedge fund that owns a 4% stake in Hess Corp., is urging other shareholders to elect its five nominees to the company’s board of directors and has called on Hess to spin off its assets in the Bakken, Eagle Ford and Utica shale plays.

SM Energy said Wednesday that next year it will spend 90% of its planned drilling and completions budget of $1.2 billion on its Eagle Ford, Bakken/Three Forks and Permian Basin programs.

More than 85% of Houston-based Rosetta Resources Inc.’s 2013 capex budget of $700 million will be spent in the liquids-rich window of the Eagle Ford Shale. About 10% of spending will go to evaluation of new venture opportunities outside the Eagle Ford that the company recently began talking about.

Houston-based Rosetta Resources Inc. grew net income and revenues during the second quarter, thanks to more production that was more heavily weighted to liquids. Where one goes to get that in Texas — as everyone knows — is the Eagle Ford Shale. As it continues to develop its core Gates Ranch area there, Rosetta is stepping out as well.

Following the abrupt departure of Forest Oil Corp. (FST) CEO H. Craig Clark, one analyst that follows the company suggested that his quick exit was related to the company’s failure to strike a joint venture (JV) in the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas.

Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. is expanding its operations in the liquids-rich Marcellus Shale.