Leaseholder

Responding to the increase in natural gas production out of the Uinta Basin, Questar Pipeline Co. will be holding a binding open season to solicit support for an expansion of takeaway capacity by extending its Jurisdictional Lateral 138 (JL138) to the Myton Yard in Myton, UT.

Oklahoma City-based Continental Resources Inc., the Bakken’s largest leaseholder, said Monday it has raised its reserves estimates for parts of the Bakken Three Forks area by 57% to 903 billion bbl following completion of an initial test well.

EnerVest Ltd., the second biggest leaseholder in the Utica Shale after Chesapeake Energy Corp., should complete the sale of a big chunk of its leasehold by the end of the year, CEO John Walker said Friday. The property sale could fetch as much as $6 billion for the privately held Houston operator and publicly traded arm EV Energy Partners (EVEP).

Landowner groups in Ohio say they are battling it out with Chesapeake Energy Corp., the largest leaseholder in the Utica Shale, over the company’s attempts to renegotiate leases to expand acreage and increase the size of drilling units. The landowners claim landmen are going door to door, trying to pressure them into signing on for larger drilling units so Chesapeake doesn’t have to drill as many wells to hold onto its acreage.

Landowner groups in Ohio say they are battling it out with Chesapeake Energy Corp., the largest leaseholder in the Utica Shale, over the company’s attempts to renegotiate leases to expand acreage and increase the size of drilling units.

U.S. Silica Holdings Inc. and BNSF Railway Co. are partnering to meet the needs of Eagle Ford Shale producers for sand to be used as proppant in their hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp. has drilled and is producing from three wells in the eastern Ohio portion of the Utica Shale, the most recent of which delivered more than 9,500 bbl of crude oil and 12 MMcf of natural gas in the first 20 days online, the producer said Thursday.

Maryland intends to sue Chesapeake Energy Corp. over an April 19 Marcellus Shale well blowout and the release of thousands of gallons of hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking) fluid into a tributary of the Susquehanna River, according to the state’s attorney general, Douglas F. Gansler.

James Dupree has been named by BP plc to take over the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) division, which is based in Houston. BP is the largest leaseholder in the GOM. Dupree, who was named senior vice president of the offshore U.S. region, replaces Neil Shaw, who was tapped to lead the company’s Centralized Developments Organization, a global exploration and production unit. Dupree recently was in charge of BP’s oil and gas business in Russia; he previously was in charge of activities in Kazakhstan. Dupree was based in Houston from 2000 to 2002 when he helmed the company’s GOM deepwater production, drilling, exploration and facility fabrication unit.