production

Producers in the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas are having to take the bad with the good. The good: abundant oil and liquids-rich gas production in an era of very low dry gas prices. The bad: a dearth of infrastructure to handle the play’s robust output.

An investor group led by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. LP (KKR) has agreed to pay $7.2 billion for Samson Investment Co. of Tulsa, one of the largest privately held exploration and production (E&P) companies in the United States. The deal gives KKR and its partners stakes in a number of unconventional resources plays.

The chair of the Railroad Commission of Texas has directed commission staff to look into its existing rules on water recycling in the oil and gas patch. “If we need to streamline our old rules and make amendments where necessary to encourage companies to expand their recycling activities, then that is what we will do,” said Chair Elizabeth Ames Jones. “…[W]e must maintain that hydraulic fracturing can continue to benefit Texas by allowing companies to manage water use and conserve when possible as it relates to this process of energy production.”

An investor group led by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. LP (KKR) has agreed to pay $7.2 billion for Samson Investment Co. of Tulsa, one of the largest privately held exploration and production (E&P) companies in the United States. The group is picking up all of Samson’s assets, including shale play holdings, except for its onshore Gulf Coast and deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GOM) assets.

The race to break through the Midcontinent bottleneck and flow expanding supplies of crude oil, bolstered by shale production to the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and world markets moved up by about 300,000 b/d with separate announcements last Wednesday of plans to reverse the flow of the Seaway crude oil pipeline, and a possible go-ahead for the Cushing to the GOM southern section of the stalled Keystone XL oil pipeline.

The race to break through the Midcontinent bottleneck and flow expanding supplies of crude oil, bolstered by shale production to the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and world markets moved up by about 300,000 b/d with separate announcements Wednesday of plans to reverse the flow of the Seaway crude oil pipeline, and a possible go-ahead for the Cushing to the GOM southern section of the stalled Keystone XL oil pipeline.

Santa Barbara, CA-based Hypersolar Inc. has filed a patent application for the production of a carbon-neutral methane gas made using sunlight, water and carbon dioxide (CO2) that the company said “can be used as a direct replacement for traditional natural gas.” HyperSolar is developing a solar-powered nanoparticle system that mimics photosynthesis to separate hydrogen from water; the hydrogen can then be reacted with CO2 to produce methane “without drilling or [hydraulic fracturing],” the company said.

The co-chairs of a West Virginia panel trying to reach a consensus on Marcellus Shale regulatory reform testified Monday that they believe compromise legislation is within reach and could be enacted in the near future.

Everyone involved in shale gas development needs to do a better job, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB) subcommittee on shale gas production said in its final report.