Property

A subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell plc has signed a second, six-month extension that gives it more time to decide whether to purchase property in western Pennsylvania that could ultimately be used for a “world scale” ethane cracker in the heart of the Marcellus Shale region.

Robert Douglas Lawler, 46, one of Anadarko Petroleum Corp.’s top exploration and production (E&P) executives, on Monday was named the new CEO of Chesapeake Energy Corp.

A news media tour was held Saturday at the Mayflower, AR, oil spill area under the joint command of local, state and federal officials, as well as ExxonMobil representatives. The event was held to provide an update of the spill, which occurred March 29 when a portion of the ExxonMobil Pegasus Pipeline ruptured. Since then, the portion of the 850-mile oil pipeline that failed has been removed for analysis at an independent laboratory and a new section of pipeline installed, all under state and federal oversight. In ExxonMobil’s most recent daily report the company indicated that cleanup was coming to an end and remediation of the area should begin soon. Monitoring by the company and various agencies has indicated that there has been no contamination of water or air from the spilling of what is estimated to be 5,000 bbl of oil. Besides U.S. Environmental Protection Agency representatives, there have been representatives from the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the Arkansas Attorney General’s Office and local government on the scene since the cleanup began. Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel launched an investigation several days after the incident (see Shale Daily, April 3).

Royale Energy Inc. said Wednesday it struck a $43 million joint venture (JV) agreement with an unnamed company to fund exploration costs on its Alaska North Slope acreage.

A lawsuit filed by a several Barnett Shale mineral owners accuses Chesapeake Energy Corp. of selling natural gas to an affiliate for a reduced price and basing royalty payments on those sales, which violates the terms of the lease agreements.

Calgary-based Talisman Energy Inc. last year cut debt by $750 million, stabilized its balance sheet and is now focused on two core areas: the Americas and the Asia-Pacific region, said CEO Hal Kvisle.

A six-foot section of a 20-inch diameter Columbia Gas Transmission system that ruptured Dec. 11 in West Virginia had wall thickness measured as low as 0.078 inches, significantly thinner than the nominal wall thickness of 0.281 inches when the pipeline was installed in 1967, according to a preliminary report issued Wednesday by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

Ultra Petroleum Inc.’s Wyoming unit on Friday agreed to sell a liquids pipeline system and gathering facilities and certain associated real property rights in the Pinedale Anticline in Wyoming for $225 million. The buyer is Pinedale Corridor LP, a newly created unit of CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust, and the deal is expected to close later this month.

Range Resources Inc., which two years ago turned away from the Barnett Shale and toward the Marcellus Shale, saw its overall production boom in 3Q2012, based in large part on a surge of Marcellus gas, according to CEO Jeff Ventura.