Minerals

Two environmental groups are asking the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to reconsider its decision to allow WPX Energy Inc. to drill unconventional natural gas wells into the Mancos Shale play in northwest New Mexico’s San Juan Basin.

MarkWest Energy Partners LP has closed on its acquisition of partner The Energy and Minerals Group’s (EMG) 49% stake in MarkWest Liberty Midstream & Resources LLC.

MarkWest Energy Partners LP, which teamed up with private equity fund The Energy & Minerals Group (EMG) three years ago to create one of the largest natural gas processing companies in the Marcellus Shale, now sees a “critical” need to create similar midstream infrastructure in the emerging Utica Shale, CEO Frank Semple said last week.

MarkWest Energy Partners LP, which teamed up with private equity fund The Energy & Minerals Group (EMG) three years ago to create one of the largest natural gas processing companies in the Marcellus Shale, now sees a “critical” need to create similar midstream infrastructure in the emerging Utica Shale, CEO Frank Semple said late Monday.

MarkWest Energy Partners LP and The Energy & Minerals Group (EMG) late Monday launched a midstream joint venture (JV) to develop natural gas processing and natural gas liquids (NGL) fractionation, transportation and marketing infrastructure in eastern Ohio beginning next year.

Indigo II Louisiana Operating LLC said it has made a new oil discovery in central Louisiana with its first horizontal well targeting the Louisiana Eagle Ford Shale (LA Eagle Ford).

An open season for Project Mariner West, a proposed pipeline to deliver ethane from MarkWest Liberty Midstream & Resources LLC’s Houston, PA, processing and fractionation complex in the Marcellus Shale to Sarnia, ON, has received binding commitments that enable the project to proceed as designed with an initial capacity to transport approximately 50,000 b/d and the ability to expand to support higher volumes as needed, according to Sunoco Logistics Partners LP.

Changes to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (USACE) methods of reviewing and permitting natural gas pipelines in Pennsylvania, which were instituted by the Corps July 1, will result in “substantial delays” in pipeline construction in the state’s Marcellus Shale area, according to David Spigelmyer, Chesapeake Energy vice president of government relations.

The total value of minerals produced in Wyoming last year was up 23% year over year, hitting $15.5 billion, Gov. Matt Mead announced Monday. Separately, Mead said the state was providing grants to local fire districts in the southeastern part of the state that have heavy impacts from shale gas and other mineral production.