Months

Investors apparently approved of Philadelphia-based Atlas Resource Partners LP’s deal to acquire 277 Bcfe of proved reserves, including undeveloped drilling locations, in the Barnett Shale from Carrizo Oil & Gas. Atlas shares closed up 32% Friday following the deal’s announcement.

Where natural gas prices are concerned, last year’s “worst case” (gas below $3/Mcf) is this year’s “reality,” and the outlook for the net 12-24 months is “exceedingly ugly,” according to the buzz at Raymond James & Associates Inc.’s recent Institutional Investors Conference.

Hopeful that it is seeing the final months of a moratorium on high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) tick away in New York, Norse Energy Corp. ASA — a company that, like many others, has suffered through years of uncertainty at the hands of the delay — is positioning itself to hit the ground running in the Marcellus and Utica shales.

Fined and verbally flogged by federal and state regulators over the 18 months since its catastrophic gas transmission pipeline explosion in San Bruno, CA, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) received more critical reviews last week, some at its own hands.

Joining the months-long trend in the industry of transitioning from dry natural gas targets to more liquids-rich plays due to market economics, Dallas-based Matador Resources Co. said recently its 2012 plans will target the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas while ramping down the development of its Haynesville Shale acreage in North Louisiana.

Where natural gas prices are concerned, last year’s “worst case” (gas below $3/Mcf) is this year’s “reality,” and the outlook for the net 12-24 months is “exceedingly ugly,” according to the buzz at Raymond James & Associates Inc.’s recent Institutional Investors Conference.

When Gov. Tom Corbett approved Act 13 last month, he gave county officials across the state 60 days to impose an annual fee on unconventional gas wells, or to opt-out. With five weeks until the April 14 deadline, almost all of the eligible counties are on the road toward imposing the fee, but the biggest potential hold-out also happens to be the most active county in the Marcellus Shale (see Shale Daily, Feb. 15).

The mild temperatures that have dominated this winter’s weather will fade somewhat over the next three months, with cooler-than-normal temperatures moving into much of the western United States and parts of the Northeast, according to forecasters at Andover, MA-based Weather Services International (WSI).

Drillers in northeastern Pennsylvania — the dry gas area of the Marcellus Shale — in the months ahead will stomp on the brakes with both feet and jam the dry gas freight train into reverse, according to an analysis by Bentek Energy LLC. Even if they do, a bulging gas surplus will fester behind pipeline capacity constraints for years to come, the firm said.