Spend

Encana Corp. on Thursday struck a C$2.18 billion joint venture (JV) agreement to explore and develop close to half a million acres of its leasehold in the Duvernay Shale with a subsidiary of PetroChina International Ltd.

Range Resources Corp. expects to spend about 85% of its $1.3 billion 2013 capital expenditures (capex) budget on liquids-rich and oil projects, predominately in wet areas of the Marcellus Shale and through horizontal drilling in the Mississippian Lime, the Fort Worth, TX-based company said Wednesday.

ConocoPhillips plans to spend more than half of next year’s capital expenditures (capex) on North America, with a focus on deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and unconventional onshore, the independent said.

EOG Resources Inc. CEO Mark Papa said the company has no plans to sell its estimable onshore natural gas leaseholds. But he also doesn’t expect management to spend much time or money on the plays in 2013, he told analysts last week.

EOG Resources Inc. CEO Mark Papa said the company has no plans to sell its estimable onshore natural gas leaseholds. But he also doesn’t expect management to spend much time or money on the plays in 2013.

California energy utilities can spend nearly $2 billion over the next two years on energy efficiency programs, following authorization Thursday from the state regulatory commission. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) said the action for 2013-2014 programs will deliver overall savings that prevent the need for two new natural gas-fired power plants and will save “significant” amounts of gas. In addition to approving individual plans for the state’s four major investor-owned utilities and community choice aggregators, the CPUC created two regional energy networks for the San Francisco Bay area and Southern California to complement the utility efforts. CPUC members said the latest plans, budgeted at $1.9 billion, will refocus on “deeper, longer-lasting” results.

W&T Offshore Inc. agreed Tuesday to spend $228 million to acquire all of Newfield Exploration Co.’s remaining Gulf of Mexico (GOM) properties, which include 65 deepwater blocks. The 78-block inventory covers more than 430,000 gross acres.

A Mexican government official said state-owned petroleum company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) will spend $200 million over the next three years exploring two shale formations in the country for natural gas.

Lower natural gas liquids (NGL) prices weighed down 2Q2012 earnings for both DCP Midstream Partners LP (DPM) and Energy Transfer Equity LP (ETE), the companies’ executives said in separate conference calls with analysts Wednesday.