Indian

Midstates Petroleum Co. Inc. is buying producing properties, as well as developed and undeveloped acreage, in the Anadarko Basin in Texas and Oklahoma for $620 million in cash from Panther Energy LLC and its partners Red Willow Mid-Continent LLC and Linn Energy Holdings LLC.

Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. on Thursday said international energy companies OIL India Ltd. and Indian Oil Corp. Ltd. (IOC) will make their first foray into U.S. shale by taking a 30% stake in the Houston operator’s holdings in the Niobrara Formation of Colorado.

Standing in the middle of North Dakota’s booming oil/gas production fields, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Tuesday rolled out new federal government efforts to streamline onshore leasing and drilling processes on federal lands. Salazar made the announcement after two days of touring the Bakken Shale area, a major economic driver in what is now the nation’s third largest oil producing state.

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), community representatives and Indian tribes will collaborate on the retesting of two water wells near hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations near Pavillion, WY, which were the subject of a controversial EPA report last December (see Shale Daily, Dec. 21, 2011).

The groundwater in Pavillion, WY, contains chemicals that are normally used in natural gas production practices, such as hydraulic fracturing (fracking), according to a draft report released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Thursday.

One day after the Kitimat LNG project, which would be built on an Indian reserve near Kitimat, BC, received environmental approval (see Daily GPI, June 7), another British Columbia liquefied natural gas (LNG) project initiated the regulatory review process.

Less than a week after the Passamaquoddy Native American tribe in Maine received approval from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to lease land to Quoddy Bay LLC for construction of a $200 million LNG terminal at Split Rock (see Daily GPI, May 23), a new competing Maine LNG project was announced for construction about 10 miles away in the Washington County town of Robbinston

Just weeks after Berry Petroleum Co. set up a joint exploration and development agreement with the Ute Indian Tribe to develop acreage in the Uinta Basin of Utah, the Bakersfield, CA-based producer said it would increase its 2004 capital budget 68% to $70 million. It also authorized a 4-cent/share increase in its annual dividend and added a special dividend of 6 cents/share.

El Paso Energy Partners LP (EPN) said it has signed three new contracts totaling 246 Bcf/year of firm transportation capacity on its EPGT Texas intrastate pipeline and gas storage services at its Wilson Storage facility. City Public Service of San Antonio bought five years of firm transportation and storage service beginning July 1; Devon Energy Corp. added five years of firm transportation service beginning Oct. 1; and MGI Supply Ltd., an affiliate of Pemex Gas, began contracting for month-to-month service at the EPGT Texas delivery point located at Penitas, TX, on the Mexico border last month.