Fayetteville

BHP Billiton should jettison its U.S. petroleum business (offshore and on), which is undervalued by the market, does not contribute value to the company and does not mesh with BHP’s traditional mining operations, an activist shareholder said Monday in a letter to company directors.

Southwestern Energy Co. has idled its Fayetteville Shale drilling program for the remainder of 2015.

Houston-based natural gas producer Southwestern Energy Corp. has laid off 102 people, mostly from its Fayetteville Shale operations in Arkansas, because of commodity prices, a spokeswoman said Friday.

Flattening gas production from the Fayetteville Shale and other pipeline infrastructure in the region has prompted Ozark Gas Transmission LLC to repurpose some Arkansas gas pipeline facilities for refined products service.

Nearly 10 years on and after 3 Tcf of cumulative operated production, the Fayetteville Shale is still setting records for the play’s pioneer, Southwestern Energy Co. Meanwhile, Marcellus Shale activity last year drove overall company production to record levels.

The venerable Fayetteville Shale has about 38 Tcf of technically recoverable reserves left, and 18 Tcf of that can be had with gas prices near $4/Mcf, according to a study by the Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG) at The University of Texas at Austin (UT).

Southwestern Energy Co. executives trumpeted record results for 3Q2013 — including nearly double the gas production in the Marcellus Shale from the previous year’s quarter — and were excited by the success of a vertical well targeting the Lower Smackover Brown Dense formation, an emerging unconventional play in southern Arkansas and northern Louisiana.

Spectra Energy Transmission’s Texas Eastern Transmission announced an expansion to serve industrial markets in South Louisiana by Spring 2015 with shale gas supplies from multiple basins. An open season runs through Sept. 27.

Southwestern Energy Co. Marcellus Shale production during the second quarter was more than triple the year-ago level, and the company has been taking steps to get its gas out of the transportation capacity-constrained play. Meanwhile, production from its Fayetteville Shale activities edged up slightly.