Investments

Newly released data from Cleveland State University’s (CSU) Energy Policy Center shows that investments in Ohio’s Utica Shale have reached $74 billion since 2011, when the first unconventional commercial production was reported and the school began tracking the play’s economic impacts.

Nine of the world’s top 10 places to invest in global oil and gas are in the United States, including eight states, according to the Fraser Institute’s annual survey.

ExxonMobil Corp. investors have been a little antsy about all of the capital investments over the past five years with seemingly little to show for it, CEO Rex Tillerson said last week. He acknowledged that a lot of money has been invested in projects yet to bear fruit and said the company’s forecast on U.S. natural gas prices didn’t hit the mark.

A trio of recently completed Oneok Partners LP projects will enhance North Dakota’s processing of natural gas and help reduce flaring in the state, according to Gov. Jack Dalrymple.

Private equity (PE) investments, which more than doubled in the U.S. oil and natural gas sector from 2002 to 2012, are showing no signs of drying up, according to PwC.

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP’s (KMP) Crude/Condensate pipeline (KMCC) has entered service, carrying crude oil and condensate from the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas to the Houston Ship Channel.

Strategic cooperation agreements inked with ExxonMobil Corp. on Monday will give Russian state-owned OAO Rosneft its first investments in North American oil and gas fields.

Wyoming’s Office of State Lands and Investments garnered $11.6 million for first-year rental and application fees on state trust land parcels offered at a quarterly oil/natural gas lease sale last Wednesday in Cheyenne. The state lands office sold all 199 parcels it offered covering approximately 83,609 acres of state trust lands. Bids ranged from $1 to $5,500/acre, the state unit said. Revenue generated from the state trust lands oil/gas lease auction is distributed to public education, the University of Wyoming and the Veteran’s Home of Wyoming. The “real revenue” from the auction comes later when there is production from the leases, according to Ryan Lance, director of the lands/investment office. The office will hold its next oil/gas lease auction Aug. 8.

In an effort to expand its production of olefins, Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LP plans to build a massive 1-hexene plant at its Cedar Bayou Chemical Complex in Baytown, TX.