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A report developed by the Eagle Ford Shale Task Force released Tuesday outlines the history and facts of the booming South Texas oil and gas play in 155 pages. The report addresses topics such as workforce development, infrastructure (pipelines, roads and housing), regulations, water quality, economic benefits, flaring and air emissions, as well as issues affecting landowners, mineral owners and royalty owners. The task force was formed by Railroad Commission of Texas Commissioner David Porter in 2011 (see Shale Daily, July 29, 2011). “In 2011, the Eagle Ford Shale supported almost 50,000 full-time jobs in 20 counties and contributed over $25 billion dollars to the South Texas economy,” the report said. “From 2011 to 2013, daily hydrocarbon liquid production, including natural gas liquids, increased from 100,000 to 700,000 b/d. These developments have made South Texas one of the most prominent energy-producing regions in the United States.”

A joint venture (JV) of Battelle and Winner Global LLC expects to begin building its first unit in April to respond to a potential water shortage facing oil and natural gas companies that are engaged in hydraulic fracturing (fracking) activities in the Utica and Marcellus shales in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Continental Resources Inc. plans to double the number of drilling rigs it has targeting a legacy shale play in Oklahoma in 2013, and it will increase development and exploratory drilling in the Bakken Shale as it looks to maintain its reign as North Dakota’s top oil producer.

As producers’ interest in the Permian Basin’s Cline Shale oil play continues to grow, Occidental Petroleum Corp. unit Centurion Pipeline LP is reactivating and expanding an existing pipeline system overlying the Cline, the company said.

Dallas-based Pioneer Natural Resources Co. is cutting jobs and scaling back operations in its Trinidad, CO, operating area, a dry natural gas play in the Raton Basin. The company said low gas prices were the culprit.

A petroleum geosciences professor said hydraulic fracturing (fracking) can be performed safely in New Brunswick, and believes that Canadian province and others will eventually establish appropriate regulations to govern the practice.

The federal government is eyeing the possibility of regulating the safety of gathering lines that serve the Marcellus Shale play in Pennsylvania, the head of the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administrator (PHMSA) told a Senate panel last Monday.

Drilling in Eastern Tennessee’s dry gas Chattanooga Shale play has ceased due to low natural gas prices, so the focus has shifted to extracting oil from the state’s Fort Payne formation, which lies atop the Chattanooga. Miller Energy Resources, Inc. this week is shipping its first tanker truckload of oil produced from the Fort Payne’s only unconventional well, according to Gary Bible, vice president of geology for the Knoxville, TN-based firm.

The federal government is considering the possibility of regulating the safety of gathering lines that serve the Marcellus Shale play in Pennsylvania, the head of the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) told a Senate panel Monday.