Letter

As had been expected, the acquisition of Australia’s Eureka Energy Ltd. by Aurora Oil & Gas Ltd. is to be completed, Aurora said in a letter to Eureka shareholders. Both companies have acreage in the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas. Eureka has three core assets with a combined net acreage position of 6,742 acres, all focused on the Eagle Ford, according to the Australian company’s website. “The assets are at different levels of maturity throughout the value chain, from ongoing production and development, appraisal and development to initial technical development,” the company said. Aurora participates in multiple separate joint ventures that form a contiguous land position totaling 76,989 acres that sit at the heart of the Eagle Ford, according to the company (see Shale Daily, July 3; May 1).

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Friday released a draft of its long-awaited guidance to oil and natural gas producers on the use of diesel fuel in hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

A coalition of four senators has sent a bipartisan letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) expressing “growing concerns” about the broad approach that the agency seems to be taking to regulate fluids used in hydraulic fracturing (fracking), not just diesel fuels.

A coalition of four senators Wednesday sent a bipartisan letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) expressing their “growing concerns” about the broad approach that the agency seems to be taking to regulate fluids used in hydraulic fracturing (fracking), not just diesel fuels.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Division of Market Oversight has issued a letter requiring market participants to comply with the new large trader reporting system for physical commodity swaps and swaptions.

The Sierra Club alleges in a letter to the National Park Service (NPS) that Pennsylvania is violating federal law by allowing natural gas drilling on protected state park and forest land.

In a March 2 letter to Gov. Tom Corbett, a group of 80 Pennsylvania state representatives said they would hold up royalty revenues if the state leased additional forest land for natural gas development.

A story about the dangers of hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking), which was published by the New York Times last weekend, was “deliberately misleading,” the former chief of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) said Monday.

A subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell plc has signed a letter of intent (LOI) with Noble Corp. to secure a drilling rig for the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) deepwater. Under the LOI, Noble agreed to provide the Noble Jim Day, a 12,000-foot ultra-deepwater semisubmersible to operate in the GOM effective Feb. 15 through Jan. 31, 2012. The LOI rates depend on whether Shell is able to secure offshore drilling permits under the revamped requirements enacted by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, which are being challenged in court (see NGI, Feb. 21). Beginning Aug. 1, or sooner if Shell secures the required federal drilling permit, the operating dayrate for the Noble semisubmersible would be $485,000/day. If Shell is unable to secure the required federal permit, Noble would receive a standby rate of $156,000/day from Feb. 15 through May 31; and $242,000/day from June 1 through July 31, according to the LOI.