Portion

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) plans to unveil a map that outlines economically viable areas of the state’s portion of the Utica/Point Pleasant Shale by late September, which could provide oil and natural gas operators with a valuable tool to use for future exploration.

An energy official in New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration said natural gas is being viewed as a potential “bridge fuel” to the future, when technological advances will presumably open the door for renewables.

As energy companies begin collecting production data from the few wells drilled so far in Ohio’s portion of the Utica Shale, a picture is starting to emerge that company executives and industry experts agree will determine how, where and when the play will ultimately be developed.

Williams Partners LP said shipper interest supports a portion of Transcontinental Gas Pipeline’s (Transco) Atlantic Access project: expansion of the Leidy Line in northern Pennsylvania by up to 800,000 Dth/d by late 2015. However, the remainder of the previously announced Atlantic Access project will have to wait.

Oklahoma City-based GMX Resources Inc. has hired Global Hunter Securities to help it sell a portion of the company’s Cotton Valley Sand liquids-rich natural gas properties in East Texas. A transaction is expected during the third quarter, GMX said. The company’s natural gas resources are in the East Texas Basin, in the Haynesville/Bossier shale and the Cotton Valley Sand Formation, where the majority of its acreage is contiguous, with infrastructure in place and substantially all held by production, GMX said. In early 2011 GMX branched out from its Haynesville/Bossier properties and acquired about 67,724 net acres within the core horizontal oil development areas of the Bakken/Sanish-Three Forks Formation in the Williston Basin and the Niobrara Formation in the Denver-Julesburg Basin (see Shale Daily, Feb. 2, 2011).

Kinder Morgan Inc. Wednesday morning declared a force majeure on a portion of its Natural Gas Pipeline Company of America (NGPL) natural gas pipeline in North Texas while media reports said “a massive orange haze” from a fire filled the area sky in the Texas Panhandle.

ProWater, a Sustainable Environmental Technologies Corp. (SET) subsidiary, said Wednesday it has started drilling a new saltwater disposal (SWD) well in North Dakota’s portion of the Bakken Shale and will test a new automated system to support shale oil drilling in the play.

Woodside has accepted an offer from Japan Australia LNG (MIMI Browse) Pty Ltd (MIMI) to purchase a minority portion of its equity in the proposed Browse LNG Development in western Australia for US$2 billion with an effective date of Jan. 1, 2012. MIMI is to take a 16% interest in the East Browse joint venture (JV) and 8% interest in the West Browse JV, giving it an estimated 14.7% interest in the Browse development. Woodside’s assumed unitized interest in the Browse liquefaction and export project would fall from 46% to 31.3%. Woodside would remain operator of the development. Woodside has also accepted an offer from MIMI for a long-term sales and purchase agreement for about 1.5 million metric tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) per year from the Browse development. The price was said to be in line with “traditional Asian pricing for conventional LNG projects.” The parties will jointly market co-mingled LNG volumes to the Asian market, primarily Japanese customers, Woodside said.

Legislators and regulators in New York are hinting that should high-volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking) be permitted in the Empire State, localities that are the most receptive to the practice may be the first — and, possibly, the only — areas to allow it.