Offering

Unlike natural gas, oil can be carried in a bucket — or in a rail car — as is increasingly the case in the Bakken Shale, for instance, where the drill bit has gotten ahead of the pipeline, way ahead of the pipeline, in offering oil producers a route to market.

In the November offering, 29 tracts totaling slightly less than 10,000 acres of oil and natural gas leases were sold in four southeastern New Mexico counties, including three in the Permian Basin, New Mexico’s Land Office said Monday. All 29 tracts offered were sold among 10 bidders.

Shell Chemical LP is offering to pay western Pennsylvania localities millions for lost tax revenue affected by its proposed “world-scale” ethane cracker. The Beaver County Commissioners said the Royal Dutch Shell plc subsidiary had made an initial proposal to pay localities 110% of the annual property tax revenue currently being paid by Horsehead Holding Corp., which owns the proposed cracker site. State law caps payments-in-lieu-of-taxes at 110%. County tax records show Horsehead, a zinc producer, was assessed around $6.2 million for the 2013 tax year. At 110%, Shell’s offer could amount to an annual payment of about $6.82 million over 22 years, but the county said negotiations are needed. Local stakeholders are preparing to file an application to the state Department of Community and Economic Development for a Keystone Opportunity Expansion Zone for the ethane cracker site. Such a designation would, if approved, give Shell up to 22 years of tax exceptions and abatements.

Energy & Exploration Partners Inc. on Monday said in a filing with U.S. regulators that it intended to raise up to $275 million through an initial public offering (IPO) of its common stock. In conjunction with the filing, the producer said it had agreed to buy acreage in the Eaglebine formation of Texas from Chesapeake Energy Corp. for $125 million.

Denver-based Forest Oil Corp. Wednesday said it would make interim CEO Patrick R. McDonald the company’s permanent chief, prompting speculation by one analyst that “all strategic options remain on the table for the company.”

Technology and good old “American ingenuity” that have driven the shale gas boom are also prompting responses to a supply glut that make storage and eventual liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports more important than ever, according to Bryan Durkin, COO at CME Group, who addressed the opening session of the LDC Gas Forums mid-continent meeting in Chicago Monday.

A group of companies in Ohio that raised nearly $10 million from investors for oil and natural gas development projects has filed for bankruptcy and has agreed to pay the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) a $4.5 million judgment.

Williams Partners LP said shipper interest supports a portion of Transcontinental Gas Pipeline’s (Transco) Atlantic Access project: expansion of the Leidy Line in northern Pennsylvania by up to 800,000 Dth/d by late 2015. However, the remainder of the previously announced Atlantic Access project will have to wait.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) said Thursday it was offering another $30 million in grants aimed at advancing the equipment and technology critical to the use of natural gas vehicles (NGV). DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) announced the new funding under a vehicular category focused on methane’s use in transportation.