Management

Federal and state officials concede there was a “miscommunication” between them over plans by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to put more than 4,000 acres of a state forest in Ohio up for oil and gas leasing, and the sale has been put on hold.

Continuing to fetch higher per-acre prices, the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) took in $49.8 million last Wednesday, selling 87 leases totaling 19,015 acres in North and South Dakota, the BLM Billings, MT, office said. South Dakota had the most activity.

Rex Energy Corp. said it has seen “impressive” results so far from its first three wells in the Warrior South prospect, an area in Ohio’s portion of the Utica Shale.

PDC Energy Inc. completed the sale of its noncore Colorado natural gas assets Tuesday, with the sales proceeds earmarked to accelerate development of its liquid-rich horizontal drilling programs in the state’s Wattenberg Field and Ohio’s Utica Shale.

Williams Pacific Connector Gas Operator LLC, acting as the engineering, procurement and construction management contractor on behalf of Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline LP asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for authorization to construct and operate the Pacific Connector Pipeline, a proposed interstate natural gas transmission system designed to deliver up to 1,060,000 Dth/d of natural gas from interconnects with Ruby Pipeline LLC and Gas Transmission Northwest LLC near Malin, OR, to the Jordan Cove LNG export terminal being developed by Jordan Cove Energy Project LP. In late May Jordan Cove, an affiliate of Calgary-based Veresen Inc., filed an application with FERC to construct the liquefied natural gas export facility on the West Coast within the international Port of Coos Bay, OR (see Daily GPI, May 23).

BG Group strategy going forward will be to run with a simplified organization while improving operations and portfolio management. Exploration is at the “heart” of what BG Group does, Group CEO Chris Finlayson said last week. But global liquefied natural gas (LNG) also is crucial to growth, he said.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is initiating an environmental analysis evaluating the impacts of seismic and other geological and geophysical activities involved in oil and gas development and the potential siting of wind turbines in the Gulf of Mexico Outer Continental Shelf and adjacent state waters.

Hess Corp. has ended a proxy battle with major shareholder Elliott Management Corp. (4.4%) by agreeing to appoint three Elliott-backed nominees to its board of directors. The reconstituted board would comprise 14 members; nine were replaced following the annual meeting Thursday. The activist hedge fund, which had claimed that the company was mismanaged and controlled by Hess family interests, agreed to support five Hess nominees. The board now will be reelected every year instead of every three. Elliott also led the charge to split the chairman and CEO roles, now held by John Hess, the son of the company’s founder, and it has forced the company to sell its downstream arm and monetize Bakken Shale midstream assets.

Cardinal Midstream II LLC has secured a $200 million equity commitment from EnCap Flatrock Midstream to support midstream infrastructure development in conventional and unconventional resource plays, particularly in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and New Mexico. Cardinal is focused on natural gas and crude oil gathering, compression and centralized production facilities, condensate stabilization, vapor recovery, and natural gas treating and processing. With the new commitment, Cardinal is led by CEO Doug Dormer and President Marc Lyons. Mark Ward has joined the company as COO. Ward has more than 30 years of engineering, operations and project management experience in the upstream and midstream.