Longer

Because of new drilling techniques that allow operators to do more with less, federal officials in Colorado have more than doubled their initial estimate on the number of natural gas wells that could be drilled in the Gothic Shale in the Paradox Basin of southwestern Colorado.

Enterprise Products Partners LP and Entergy Transfer Partners LP for now have abandoned plans to construct a 584-mile crude oil pipeline from Cushing, OK, to Houston, Enterprise said Monday.

The “pace” of new hydraulic fracturing (fracking) equipment deliveries to North America’s onshore resource plays is back on track after a frustrating three-month delay caused by a wet spring in the Marcellus Shale, harsh conditions in North Dakota and delayed equipment deliveries, the CEO of Nabors Industries Ltd. said Wednesday.

Demand for oilfield services in North America’s onshore — especially hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking) — is growing faster than companies can add equipment, Halliburton CEO Dave Lesar said Monday.

August natural gas futures managed to hold on to early gains and settle squarely in the bullish camp perplexing some traders. Longer-term observers see a strong physical market and the need to price in reduced injections in upcoming weeks. At the close August had risen 8.3 cents to $4.288, and September had gained 7.3 cents to $4.277. August crude oil fell $1.05 to $95.15/bbl.

Russia’s OAO Rosneft no longer is considering BP plc as a partner for its planned Arctic development, the company’s CEO said Friday.

CenterPoint shippers are no longer under an Operational Alert that began last Tuesday due to unscheduled maintenance in the Perryville Hub area, the pipeline said Friday. The work previously had been expected to last until Saturday (see Daily GPI, Dec. 16).

While there are probably no significant shale gas supplies coming out of Nevada any time soon, there are some longer-term prospects, and in the meantime state oil and gas stakeholders are keeping an eye on shale developments in the Rockies and Western Canada, according to a gas engineering specialist at the Nevada Public Utilities Commission (PUC).

Because of U.S. shale natural gas, the United States “is no longer a big importer of or will not need to be an importer of liquefied natural gas [LNG],” the State Department coordinator for International Energy Affairs said Tuesday.