Oilsands

Murphy Oil Corp.’s plans to spin off its downstream operations will allow it to focus more time and money on exploration and production (E&P) opportunities, including a big leasehold in the Eagle Ford Shale, executives said Tuesday.

Maintaining that Colorado’s water supply is too fragile to put at risk, a diverse coalition of more than 100 of the state’s business, conservation and sporting groups sent a letter of support Wednesday for a U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) proposal to reduce the amount of land available for oil shale research and development.

How much more oomph can new drilling technology bring to the U.S. unconventional revolution? The United States likely will add 11 Bcf/d of natural gas to its reserves this year at total finding, development and completion costs under $3.00/Mcf, while a review of 45,000 unconventional oil wells is finding “tremendous” growth in oil reserves, preliminary IHS Inc. data indicate.

ConocoPhillips CEO Jim Mulva said last week shale natural gas, tight oil and oilsands no longer are the “pie-in-the-sky future sources” that they were when he entered the energy workforce 38 years ago. Unconventional resources have changed North America’s energy security and thus the rules also need to be changed, he said.

ConocoPhillips CEO Jim Mulva said Wednesday shale natural gas, tight oil and oilsands no longer are the “pie-in-the-sky future sources” that they were when he entered the energy workforce 38 years ago. Unconventional resources have changed North America’s energy security and thus the rules also need to be changed, he said.

The smell of success emanating from North American shale gas plays has wafted overseas, drawing foreign investors to joint ventures (JV) with U.S. producers. Eventually some of those foreign investors will be acquiring U.S. energy companies, Deloitte LLP consultants said.

Major joint ventures (JV) in North American unconventional resource plays were a driving force in pushing worldwide merger and acquisition (M&A) activity to a record high in 2010, preliminary data indicate.

Alberta oil sands developers are feeling the costs but are still not about to back away from projects that are making them one of the biggest and fastest-growing consumers of natural gas in North America, the Canadian Energy Research Institute predicted in a new state-of-the-industry survey.

Alberta oil sands developers are feeling the costs but still not about to back away from projects that are making them one of the biggest and fastest-growing consumers of natural gas in North America, the Canadian Energy Research Institute predicted in a new state-of-the-industry survey.