Half

Since the latter half of last year, Swift Energy Co. has been directing Eagle Ford drilling at a narrower section of the lower Eagle Ford with more precision than previous drilling, and it’s been paying off, said CEO Terry Swift.

Range Resources Corp.’s management team is “convinced” that its best wells are still to come in the Marcellus Shale after some new wells punched into a previously drilled area with five years of production history were “substantially better than previous wells,” COO Ray Walker said.

A news media tour was held Saturday at the Mayflower, AR, oil spill area under the joint command of local, state and federal officials, as well as ExxonMobil representatives. The event was held to provide an update of the spill, which occurred March 29 when a portion of the ExxonMobil Pegasus Pipeline ruptured. Since then, the portion of the 850-mile oil pipeline that failed has been removed for analysis at an independent laboratory and a new section of pipeline installed, all under state and federal oversight. In ExxonMobil’s most recent daily report the company indicated that cleanup was coming to an end and remediation of the area should begin soon. Monitoring by the company and various agencies has indicated that there has been no contamination of water or air from the spilling of what is estimated to be 5,000 bbl of oil. Besides U.S. Environmental Protection Agency representatives, there have been representatives from the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the Arkansas Attorney General’s Office and local government on the scene since the cleanup began. Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel launched an investigation several days after the incident (see Shale Daily, April 3).

With the price of gold now down nearly 30% from its record September 2011 high of $1,920.30/oz to around $1,377, analysts looking for a commodity to be bullish about have turned their focus to natural gas as a new commodity “safe haven,” thanks to the shale revolution.

TransCanada Corp. last week gave a name and targets to its promised plan to convert part of its aging, half-empty natural gas Mainline to oil service.

TransCanada Corp. Tuesday gave a name and targets to its promised plan to convert part of its aging, half-empty natural gas Mainline to oil service.

More than half of the natural gas pipeline projects that entered service were in the Northeast during 2012, a year in which overall U.S. capacity investment slowed.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s (PG&E) natural gas system appears to have overcome the San Bruno, CA, natural gas pipeline rupture and explosion two and a half years ago, PG&E Corp.’s Nick Stavropoulos, executive vice president of gas operations, said in Houston last week.

More than half of the natural gas pipeline projects that entered service were in the Northeast during 2012, a year in which overall U.S. capacity investment slowed.