Index

Overall oil production in Texas declined somewhat in January from December, according to preliminary January production figures from the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC). But the Eagle Ford Shale kept on pumping, with leading Eagle Ford counties charting substantial oil production increases from year-ago levels.

Following a judge’s decision in favor of TPG-Axon Capital, SandRidge Energy Inc. on Tuesday cleared the way for shareholders to consider a slate of candidates proposed by the hedge fund to replace SandRidge’s entire board of directors.

The North America oilfield services market “eroded more than we thought” in 3Q2012, but the spending decline could turn in January, said the research team at Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. (TPH).

A nonpartisan policy research group in Pennsylvania asserts that the state could have collected almost twice the revenue it has received in impact fees on Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling if it had implemented a severance tax instead.

When Gov. Tom Corbett approved Act 13 last month, he gave county officials across the state 60 days to impose an annual fee on unconventional gas wells, or to opt-out. With five weeks until the April 14 deadline, almost all of the eligible counties are on the road toward imposing the fee, but the biggest potential hold-out also happens to be the most active county in the Marcellus Shale (see Shale Daily, Feb. 15).

FERC Friday issued a favorable environmental assessment to Millennium Pipeline Co. LLC for a natural gas compressor station project in Minisink, NY, to boost firm deliveries of Marcellus Shale gas to its interconnection with Algonquin Gas Transmission LLC at Ramapo, NY, to approximately 675,000 Dth/d to serve the Northeast and New England markets.

EQT Corp. is suspending its Huron Shale program “indefinitely” in light of low commodity prices, the Pittsburgh company announced in a one line statement Friday.

Gulf South has made a couple of small changes in the scheduling of meter outages during in-line inspection pigging on Index 287 in the New Orleans area that began Tuesday and will continue through Aug. 25 (see Daily GPI, July 26). See the bulletin board for details.

Inspired by pioneering legislation in Texas, a Pennsylvania state lawmaker is proposing a bill that would require Marcellus Shale operators to disclose all the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking) operations.