Farm

In addition to briefing state lawmakers Wednesday on the governor’s newly released energy policy, an adviser to Gov. Matt Mead offered a joint state legislative committee a glimpse at the governor’s proposed baseline water testing rule that would apply to oil and natural gas drillers.

In an attempt to leverage the state’s two biggest industries, North Dakota is considering construction of a world-scale, $1.5 billion nitrogen fertilizer plant. The plant could make use of some of the state’s natural gas now being flared in the face of low prices to fuel the facility, while the North Dakota Corn Growers Association (CGA) would use the plant to make anhydrous ammonia.

Canadian junior producer MGM Energy Corp. on Thursday clinched a farm-out agreement in the Mackenzie Valley’s Canol Shale with a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell plc. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Wrapping up a busy Tuesday of transactions with an overarching theme of cooperation on different continents, an ExxonMobil Corp. subsidiary has entered a farm-out agreement with a subsidiary of Canada-based Americas Petrogas for the exploration and potential exploitation of shale in Americas Petrogas’s Los Toldos blocks (163,500 gross acres) located in Neuquen, Argentina.

The chief of New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) said Thursday he was considering whether to extend a 60-day comment period on DEC’s hydraulic fracturing (fracking) report, which was issued in July.

Legislation being drafted by West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s administration includes a statutory pooling provision for shallow horizontal wells, which would include Marcellus Shale drilling in the state, according to Nick Casey, a member of the Lewis Glasser Casey & Rollins law firm in Charleston, WV.

Houston-based Universal Property Development and Acquisition Corp. (UPDA) has entered into negotiations with EOG Resources Inc. to farm out the drilling of 13 wells on 2,700 acres it owns in the Barnett Shale in North Texas, UPDA said Tuesday.

McMoRan Exploration Co.’s quarterly natural gas and oil production rose significantly compared with a year ago, but the New Orleans-based producer reported a net loss because of exploration expenses and heavy start-up costs associated with its planned Main Pass Energy Hub (MPEH) liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM).

Farmers often pray for rain. These days at least some who farm the oil and gas patch are praying for M&A — mergers and acquisitions, that is — the thunderclouds from which oil and gas properties fall.