Owned

Natural gas produced from Marcellus Shale wells owned by Shell Upstream America and Ultra Petroleum Corp. has begun flowing through a UGI Central Penn Gas Inc. supply pipeline that feeds some 15,000 customers in Tioga, Bradford and Potter counties in Pennsylvania, according to the UGI Utilities Inc. subsidiary.

Coming on the heels of a significant onshore natural gas discovery in late October, Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), Mexico’s state-owned petroleum company, proved Thursday that the country is still targeting offshore reserves as well.

Members of a key advisory panel in New York that would someday govern hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the state say they won’t meet their Nov. 1 deadline because they need more time to gather critical information and budget requests from state agencies.

ConocoPhillips has asked the Department of Energy (DOE) to renew its authorization to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the terminal facilities owned by Freeport LNG Development LP on Quintana Island, TX.

Royal Dutch Shell plc and Ukraine’s state-owned oil company Naftogaz Ukrainy appear poised to clinch a deal to develop and explore shale gas in the eastern European country, with Shell initially investing about $800 million for exploration and production (E&P), according to a top Ukrainian official.

Calling development of the Marcellus Shale play “a great opportunity” for New York, the Public Policy Institute of New York State Inc. (PPI) said a scenario where 500 gas wells were drilled every year in the state would create 62,620 jobs, $2.7 billion in added value and $1 billion in local, state and federal tax revenue.

Encore Energy Partners LP is to become a wholly owned subsidiary of Vanguard Natural Resources LLC’s operating company, Vanguard Natural Gas LLC, through a unit-for-unit exchange that would give Vanguard the rest of Encore it doesn’t already own, the companies said Monday.

Eagle Ford Gathering LLC, a joint venture (JV) of Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP and Copano Energy LLC, has made a long-term agreement with Williams Partners LP to process Eagle Ford Shale production at Williams Partners’ Markham processing plant in Matagorda County, TX. The JV will construct a seven-mile, 20-inch diameter lateral to connect its previously announced crossover pipeline project to the Markham plant and install 3,400 hp of compression at a cost of about $27 million. The agreement will initially provide Eagle Ford Gathering with 100 MMcf/d of processing capacity at the Markham plant, with an option to increase capacity to up to 200 MMcf/d. “The new agreement augments the previously announced agreement with Formosa Hydrocarbons Co., [see Shale Daily, Feb. 7] resulting in up to 375 MMcf/d of total processing capacity through the crossover project,” said Duane Kokinda, president of Kinder Morgan’s intrastate pipeline group.

After months of conducting their own research into the booming oil and gas industry, thousands of landowners with the Associated Landowners of the Ohio Valley (ALOV) have recently signed Marcellus Shale lease agreements with Chesapeake Energy Corp.