Represented

With a recently signed joint venture agreement targeting the Wolfcamp Shale in hand, Pioneer Natural Resources Co. this year plans to step up horizontal drilling there. In the Eagle Ford, longer laterals and more white sand proppant instead of ceramic are on the agenda.

An update conducted last year of a Texas water use study found that oil and gas producers are using more water for hydraulic fracturing (fracking), but they’re also recycling more, making it important to distinguish between water “use” and “consumption.”

The Delaware Riverkeeper Network said more than 50 organizations have signed a petition asking the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) to take regulatory authority over natural gas pipelines in the watershed.

EnerVest Ltd., the second biggest leaseholder in the Utica Shale after Chesapeake Energy Corp., should complete the sale of a big chunk of its leasehold by the end of the year, CEO John Walker said Friday. The property sale could fetch as much as $6 billion for the privately held Houston operator and publicly traded arm EV Energy Partners (EVEP).

Gastar Exploration Ltd. said Wednesday net production from its Marcellus Shale assets have increased more than 34-fold in a year, a result of ramped up drilling activity in the liquids-rich portion of the play during the second quarter of 2012.

Continental Resources Inc. on Wednesday made a $340 million pitch to buy Bakken Shale-focused Wheatland Oil Inc., a company controlled by Continental CEO Harold Hamm.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. is contemplating the sale of its entire Permian Basin portfolio, which represented about 5% of 2011 net proved reserves and current production. Together with other sales and partnerships being considered in the U.S. onshore, the producer said it could pump up its balance sheet to the tune of $10-12 billion in 2012.

As it goes with producers, so it goes with the midstream: liquids-rich gas is the most desirable to have and to handle, and Boardwalk Pipeline Partners LP’s Boardwalk Field Services LLC is expanding its systems accordingly.

Gastar Exploration Ltd. will devote $100.5 million of its $134.2 million 2012 capital budget to drilling and completion costs, with 89% of that amount ($88.9 million) to be spent on activities in the liquids-rich window of the Marcellus Shale, the company said Tuesday.