Oil And Gas

New data has shown that oil and natural gas production in North Dakota’s Bakken Shale fell in June from May, as Department of Mineral Resources director Lynn Helms said output was struggling following last year’s pandemic. “The Covid-19 pandemic sort of put the industry to sleep, and it is struggling somewhat to wake up,” Helms…

U.S. independent Murphy Oil Corp. is advancing plans to drill in waters on the Mexican side of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) next year. Management said earlier this month the company is progressing permitting and regulatory approvals to drill at the Tulum prospect in Block 5 of the Salina Basin. CEO RogerJenkins said during Murphy’s…

A consortium of oil and gas industry groups said Monday they had sued the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) to reverse its decision this year to indefinitely freeze oil and natural gas leasing on federal lands and waters. In the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, the…

U.S. drilling permit activity climbed sharply in July, led by the Eagle Ford Shale, Powder River and Permian basins, but the overall numbers are still short from the pre-pandemic days of July 2019, according to Evercore ISI. The energy analyst team led by James West uses federal and state data to compile a monthly review…

“One of the priorities of this government is to strengthen the dominance of the two state energy monopolies, which has cut private investors out of the business,” Alejandra López Martínez, energy consultant at Eploc and seasoned Mexico energy industry expert, told NGI’s Mexico Gas Price Index.  “Seeing international companies as a synonym for corruption has…

The plethora of bankruptcies that engulfed the North American oil and gas sector as Covid-19 stripped demand has begun to subside, according to Haynes and Boone LLP. The law firm since 2015 has monitored the North American oil patch, oilfield services (OFS) and midstream sectors to tally bankruptcies. A dozen exploration and production (E&P) producers…

With Gulf of Mexico (GOM) activity accelerating throughout both U.S. and Mexico waters, Australia’s BHP has given its stamp of approval to spend $258 million to advance the front-end engineering design phase for the Trion project in Mexico’s deepwater. Studies would be centered on completing engineering and commercial arrangements toward potentially sanctioning the project by…

Marathon Oil Corp. CEO Lee Tillman promised investors during a quarterly conference call on Thursday that higher oil and natural gas prices would not move the company to increase capital spending this year. The Houston-based super independent, which has set a 2021 capital expenditure (capex) budget of $1 billion, generated $422 million of free cash…

The United States gained three drilling rigs for the week ending Friday (Aug. 6), all working in the Lower 48, according to Baker Hughes Co. (BKR).  There were 491 active rigs total in the U.S. onshore and Gulf of Mexico (GOM), compared with 247 for the same period of 2020. The weekly rig tally is…