Systems

Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. closed out 2011 averaging 600 MMcf/d from the Marcellus Shale, including one day where the Houston company produced a record 606 MMcf.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged the former CEO and CFO of Bixby Energy Systems, a Minnesota-based clean coal technology company, for making allegedly false and misleading statements to investors, and it separately charged a network of brokers for selling Bixby’s securities without being registered to do so.

Gastar Exploration Ltd. achieved its goal of increasing Marcellus Shale production in northern West Virginia this year, and now the Houston-based company is setting the same goal for itself in the coming year.

Crestwood Midstream Partners LP has signed a memorandum of understanding with Mountaineer Keystone LLC to build a 42-mile natural gas gathering system in northeast West Virginia, a project that would for the first time open the Marcellus Shale to the Houston-based midstream partnership.

Enterprise Products Partners LP’s $1.5 billion, 270-mile Acadian Haynesville Extension pipeline has entered service, linking producers in the Haynesville/Bossier shale play with new markets.

Decidedly low-tech compared to the real-time electric grid system, natural gas nevertheless is due for a smartness upgrade in its usually mechanically based infrastructure. From increased uses as a transportation fuel to higher-tech approaches to exploration and production (E&P) in the oil/gas patch, the latest natural gas technological push has been boosted by the burgeoning shale gas sector.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has given Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. permission to resume drilling at a Marcellus Shale natural gas well pad in Susquehanna County after an investigation found no elevated levels of methane in private drinking water wells.

ExxonMobil Corp. and Russia’s OAO Rosneft said Tuesday they have forged an agreement to jointly explore and develop projects in North America, including the tight oilfields of Texas and the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), as well as in Russia and other countries around the world. The two oil giants also agreed to share technology in the wide-ranging transaction.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. are trying to determine if Marcellus Shale drilling is responsible for causing possible methane gas migration that impacted three private drinking water wells in Susquehanna County, and to find the source of a combustible gas bubbling from a local pond.