Resource

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) White River field office in Colorado has extended to Jan. 28 the public comment deadline for a draft resource management plan (RMP) for parts of the Piceance Basin, which when finalized could result in thousands of new natural gas wells.

Atlas Resource Partners LP (ARP) has picked up its third big leasehold this year in the Barnett Shale by agreeing to pay $255 million to DTE Energy Co. for an affiliate that owns close to 35 million boe of proved reserves in the Fort Worth Basin and in the Marble Falls, TX, area.

EFL Overseas Inc. (EFLO) has acquired from Nahanni Energy Inc. additional rights and interests in the Liard Basin natural gas field and facilities in the Kotaneelee area of the Yukon Territory, the Houston-based company said.

Penn Virginia Resource Partners LP (PVR) has begun service on a new 30-mile, 24-inch diameter trunkline serving Marcellus Shale producers in north-central Pennsylvania with 750 MMcf/d of capacity. The capacity gives producers shipping gas out of the Marcellus a way around constraints on Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s congested 300 Line.

UGI Energy Services Inc. and Capitol Energy Ventures Corp. have taken firm capacity on the proposed Commonwealth Pipeline, making them anchor shippers on the project, which is sponsored by Inergy Midstream LP, UGI Energy and Capitol Energy. The contracts are for 10 years at negotiated rates. Commonwealth would provide a path for bringing gas produced in the Marcellus and Utica shale plays to markets in central and southeastern Pennsylvania and the greater Mid-Atlantic region (see Shale Daily, May 8). The proposed interstate pipeline will consist initially of 120 miles of 30-inch diameter pipeline extending from the southern terminus of the Inergy Midstream’s MARC I Pipeline in Lycoming County, PA, to several points of interconnection in southeastern Pennsylvania with other interstate pipelines, including NiSource Gas Transmission and Storage, Texas Eastern Transmission Co., Transco Pipeline, and Eastern Shore Natural Gas Co.

Investment funds affiliated with Riverstone Holdings LLC, and Kaiser Midstream, a midstream services company owned by Tulsa, OK, billionaire George B. Kaiser, are partnering with Sage Midstream LLC to form a new company with up to $500 million of equity commitments.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has issued an amendment to the draft White River Resource Management Plan for oil and natural gas development in northwestern Colorado’s Piceance Basin over the next 20 years.

BHP Billiton Ltd.’s recent announcement of a $2.8B charge for the diminished value of its dry gas Fayetteville Shale assets (see Shale Daily, Aug. 7) wasn’t the only bad shale-related news to come from the Australian company. Its Petrohawk Energy Corp. unit has been turning in sour numbers as well.

Running counter to recent public and private sector analyses, mediocre results so far and complex geology have combined to cause an Alliance Bernstein (AB) analyst to question whether the Monterey Shale will live up to some of the hype surrounding its future prospects. Even with these reservations, high oil prices could push the play closer to its potential, the report conceded.