Fort

Total E&P USA agreed to pay $6 million to the city of Fort Worth, TX for underpaying natural gas royalties in the Barnett Shale on leases it co-owns with Chesapeake Energy Corp.

With oil and natural gas production essentially flat in North Dakota’s Bakken Shale play, state officials have noted an uptick in drilling interest on the Fort Berthold Reservation while a statewide effort to reduce wellhead flared gas has hit a wall.

The developer of a water supply project for West Texas is hoping that by the time his pipelines are online, commodity prices will have entered recovery mode. STW Water Process & Technologies recently bought a second brackish water lease in the Fort Stockton, TX, area to support its West Texas Water Project.

To the consternation of industry and North Dakota officials, the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara (MHA) American Indian tribes on Fort Berthold Reservation have established a regulatory commission and leaders intend to oversee future oil and natural gas activities, where production currently represents about one-third of the state's 1.1 million b/d output.

To the consternation of industry and North Dakota officials, the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara (MHA) American Indian tribes on Fort Berthold Reservation have established a regulatory commission and leaders intend to oversee future oil and natural gas activities, where production currently represents about one-third of the state’s 1.1 million b/d output.

With one-third of North Dakota’s growing oil and natural gas production coming from the Fort Berthold Reservation lands, state officials said Tuesday the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has agreed informally that new anti-flaring rules would be enforced on the federally managed lands.

Despite protests by state officials and the energy industry, the Boulder (CO) County commission on Tuesday extended a 16-month drilling moratorium now in place by another 18 months, following the lead of the Boulder city council, which earlier this month imposed a one-year drilling permit ban (see Shale Daily, June 7).

Fort Worth-based Athlon Energy Inc., which is focused on the Wolfberry play in the Permian Basin, has filed for an initial public offering (IPO) expected to be worth $345 million.

Like other cities and its own county in Colorado, the Boulder City Council is set to consider two actions related to the use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) on open space within the city limits.