Still

Debt-tarnished Quicksilver Resources Inc. said Thursday it is still in talks to sell a nonoperated minority working interest in its Barnett Shale assets and is negotiating a potential joint venture (JV) in the Horn River Basin in northeast British Columbia. Investors have been awaiting deals on both fronts for some time.

Debt-tarnished Quicksilver Resources Inc. said Thursday it is still in talks to sell a nonoperated minority working interest in its Barnett Shale assets and is negotiating a potential joint venture (JV) in the Horn River Basin in northeast British Columbia. Investors have been awaiting deals on both fronts for some time.

Regulators in Alaska are proposing a comprehensive set of rules to govern hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the state, and will accept public comments on the proposals through early February, when a public hearing is also scheduled.

Despite the fact that a winter chill and storm were still battering much of the Northeast, Midcontinent and Mid-Atlantic, January natural gas futures expired on a negative note Thursday as some market watchers were beginning to question whether the United States might be in for a repeat performance of the overall weather mildness recorded during the 2011-2012 winter.

The Mancos Shale plays in the Piceance and San Juan basins in Colorado and New Mexico are a potential gold mine of low-cost natural gas supplies, according to an executive from Rapid City, SD-based Black Hills Corp., who spoke Wednesday to Wall Street analysts at the J.P. Morgan SMid Cap Conference.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said Tuesday the number of drilling rigs active in the Utica Shale during the last week of October had more than doubled compared with the same week in 2011, with an increase in rigs targeting oil more than offsetting the loss of natural gas rigs.

After more than a century of production from conventional pools, astronomical volumes still await new methods of extracting natural gas and oil from Alberta’s shale, according to provincial earth scientists.

Onshore unconventional powerhouse Devon Energy Corp. plans to spend “significantly less” on exploration in 2013, but exploration activity still will remain at 2012 levels, CEO John Richels said last week.

After more than a century of production from conventional pools, astronomical volumes still await the new methods of extracting natural gas and oil from Alberta’s shale, according to provincial earth scientists.