Milestone

Regulators with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) passed a milestone in the Utica Shale last week, after having cumulatively issued more than 600 permits for horizontal wells targeting oil and natural gas.

A unit of Tokyo Gas Co. Ltd. is buying an undivided 25% interest in the Barnett Shale assets of Quicksilver Resources Inc. for $485 million, marking a milestone for the debt-laden Fort Worth, TX-based producer, which has long sought a partner in the play.

A unit of Tokyo Gas Co. Ltd. is buying an undivided 25% interest in the Barnett Shale assets of Quicksilver Resources Inc. for $485 million, marking a milestone for the debt-laden Fort Worth, TX-based producer, which has long sought a Barnett partner.

Apache Corp. is taking no prisoners in the Permian Basin nor in the Midcontinent after building output from the combined regions by almost 24% in 2012 from 2011. By themselves, the two regions represented 25% of total global production at 197,000 boe/d.

Physical gas prices continued to slide Thursday at nearly all points, likely helped lower by the screen’s milestone Wednesday of dropping below $2. Moderating weather in the Northeast Thursday pulled the plug on any price gains prior to the release of inventory data, and western locations weakened as well.

A unit of Royal Dutch Shell plc has inked a milestone agreement with Chinese officials to use its technical know-how to develop shale gas in a first-ever production sharing contract (PSC).

North Dakota passed another oil production milestone in November, averaging more than a half-million b/d, according to preliminary data released Tuesday by the state Industrial Commission.

Operators drilled more than 1,000 wells into the Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale through the end of July, a milestone not reached until mid-September in 2010 and not at all in 2009.

Marking a U-turn of sorts in the company’s exploration and production strategy due to low natural gas prices and a premium on liquids prices, Range Resources Corp. in its 3Q2010 earnings call put its Barnett Shale properties in Texas on the block and announced that it plans to focus on its “liquids-rich plays” in the Marcellus Shale.