Success

Efforts to replicate in Europe the United States’ shale gas success took another blow Friday when French President Francois Hollande said that a ban on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) would remain in place during his five-year term. Hollande, the candidate of the Socialist party, became president following a two-round election earlier this year.

Houston-based Crimson Exploration Inc. said its Woodbine and Eagle Ford shale programs continue to enjoy success, contribution to second quarter production that was in the upper range of the company’s guidance.

Some of Halliburton Co.’s pressure pumping deliveries in North America originally planned for this year will be deferred to 2013 to deal with “inefficiencies” that followed onshore producers moving from dry natural gas plays to more liquids-rich regions, company executives said Wednesday.

This year is the first in a multi-year period of growth for Noble Energy Inc. as the company realizes the payoff from “multiple years of exploration success,” CEO Charles Davidson told financial analysts Thursday during an earnings conference call. However, dry gas production from the Marcellus Shale is not part of the windfall, at least not for a while.

Dallas-based Pioneer Natural Resources Co. reported a 9% sequential increase in production for the fourth quarter and attributed the success to “three core liquids-rich growth assets in Texas.” In light of low prices for dry gas, the company has tweaked some of its drilling plans while it continues to high-grade liquids-rich drilling.

The Utica Shale could be worth $500 billion, and the “biggest thing economically to hit Ohio, since maybe the plow,” Chesapeake Energy Corp. CEO Aubrey McClendon told an audience in Ohio on Wednesday.

On the heels of a mega Marcellus Shale partnership agreement in August, CONSOL Energy Inc. on Wednesday announced that Hess Corp. would become its partner on half of its nearly 200,000 acres in the prospective Utica Shale in eastern Ohio.

A breakthrough technology using an absorbent form of silica removed nearly all of the petrochemicals from water produced by hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking) in natural gas shale wells and other geologic formations, Energy Department scientists reported late last week.

The smell of success emanating from North American shale gas plays has wafted overseas, drawing foreign investors to joint ventures (JV) with U.S. producers. Eventually some of those foreign investors will be acquiring U.S. energy companies, Deloitte LLP consultants said.