Operated

SM Energy Co. and a unit of Japan’s Mitsui & Co. Ltd. have struck a drilling carry agreement in the Eagle Ford Shale that is worth $680 million to the Denver-based producer and is part of its sell-down in the South Texas play. Mitsui, which already has a Marcellus Shale stake, recently announced a deal in Poland, where it said it plans to apply shale lessons learned in the United States.

The Wallow wildfire in eastern Arizona’s White Mountains on Wednesday was threatening energy facilities operated by UniSource Energy Corp.’s Tucson Electric Power (TEP) utility, but a utility spokesperson told NGI there was no immediate danger and outages so far had been avoided. Expanding at four to five miles daily, the fire has cut across 311,000 acres of dense pine forests running near TEP’s north-south transmission power lines and coal-fired generation complex at Springerville, AZ. Under threat are the two power lines that carry 1,100 MW of power from Springerville and San Juan Generating Stations into the greater Tucson area. If the fire came close enough to the power lines to shut them down, TEP can bring on additional local generation and coordinate with other utilities to avoid outages, a spokesperson said.

An El Paso Corp.-operated well in North Louisiana is the first gas-producing well to be completed using all three of Halliburton’s proprietary CleanSuite production enhancement technologies for both hydraulic fracturing and water treatment, the companies said. More than four million gallons of an ecofriendly CleanStim fracture fluid system, which was first introduced by Halliburton last year (see Shale Daily, Nov. 16, 2010), was used to enhance the well, they said. CleanStim is a food-based fracking solution. Halliburton’s CleanStream process was used to treat nearly 4.8 million gallons of water and another one million gallons of produced water was prepared for recycling in the well through the CleanWave system.

Chevron Corp. is buying another 228,000 net acres in the Marcellus Shale from privately held Chief Oil & Gas LLC and Tug Hill Inc. for an undisclosed amount, which when completed would give the oil major an estimated 5 Tcf of additional natural gas resources in the hot shale play.

An El Paso Corp.-operated well in North Louisiana is the first gas-producing well to be completed using all three of Halliburton’s proprietary CleanSuite production enhancement technologies for both hydraulic fracturing and water treatment, the companies said. More than four million gallons of an ecofriendly CleanStim fracture fluid system, which was first introduced by Halliburton last year (see Daily GPI, Nov. 16, 2010), was used to enhance the well, they said. CleanStim is a food-based fracking solution. Halliburton’s CleanStream process was used to treat nearly 4.8 million gallons of water and another one million gallons of produced water was prepared for recycling in the well through the CleanWave system.

Jones Energy Holdings (JEH) has acquired all of the producing properties in the Arkoma Basin owned and operated by Southridge Energy LLC and Pablo Energy II, which includes 20 MMcfe/d of current net production and more than 77,000 gross acres located primarily in the liquids-rich fairway of the Woodford Shale in Oklahoma’s Coal and Atoka counties, JEH said Wednesday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Bill Barrett Corp. executives said last Wednesday the company will be on the lookout for acquisition opportunities during the year, primarily in the company’s traditional backyard of the Rocky Mountains, but outside the Rockies, “we’ll take a look at it,” CEO Fred Barrett told financial analysts.

Most operations at the Mont Belvieu, TX, natural gas liquids (NGL) processing plant owned and operated by Enterprise Products Partners LP (EPD) are either back to normal or soon will be, and plans for a new fractionator there remain on schedule, said EPD CEO Michael Creel.

A segment of the 36-inch diameter Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) owned and operated by El Paso Corp., exploded and caused a fire at about 10:30 p.m. EST Thursday near Dungannon, OH, a spokesman told NGI Friday.