Much

PDC Mountaineer (PDCM), a joint venture of Petroleum Development Corp. and Lime Rock Partners V LP, will pay $152.5 million to National Grid plc for Seneca-Upshur LLC, including the rights to an estimated 90,000 net acres in the Marcellus Shale in north central West Virginia, the company said Monday. Closing is scheduled for Monday (Oct. 3), with an effective date of July 1, 2011.

Shale gas production is projected to increase to the point where it becomes the dominant domestic gas supply over the next two decades, but it brings with it the “greatest source of uncertainty” facing North American gas markets, according to the Deloitte Center for Energy Solutions.

A relatively late entrant in the growing national debate about shale formations and how much long-term domestic reserves they bring to the United States, the Monterey Shale in California is an extensive old oil play that some analysts are predicting will experience a rebirth in today’s shale-dominated domestic energy world.

With much of drought-stricken Texas being ravaged by wildfires, the energy industry has its eyes on infrastructure that could be threatened by flames and potential production shut-ins. However, production volumes from fire-afflicted Texas counties “seem unaffected so far,” Bentek Energy LLC said in a note Friday.

With much of drought-stricken Texas being ravaged by wildfires, the energy industry has its eyes on infrastructure that could be threatened by flames and potential production shut-ins. However, production volumes from fire-afflicted Texas counties “seem unaffected so far,” Bentek Energy LLC said in a note Friday.

Production data issued by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) Tuesday — which indicated that increased drilling in the Marcellus Shale has been the leading force in the growth of natural gas production in the northeastern United States — combined with a recent U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) report, demonstrates that the Marcellus Shale is hardly the shrinking violet some mainstream media reports have claimed, according to the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC).

Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale operators produced nearly as much natural gas in the first six months of 2011 as they did in the previous year and a half, according to new Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) data.

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.

Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale operators produced nearly as much natural gas in the first six months of 2011 as they did in the previous year and a half, according to new Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) data.