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The Barnett Shale’s natural gas production potential is “slowly declining;” however, total resource recovery from the granddaddy of shale plays is expected to be three times what has been produced to date, according to research conducted by the Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG) at The University of Texas at Austin and funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Denver-based PDC Energy Inc. has sold its Piceance and other mostly natural gas Colorado holdings to concentrate its drilling efforts in the Utica Shale in Ohio, along with Weld County’s Wattenberg field in Colorado.

Consol Energy Inc. announced Friday that it would begin shifting its Utica Shale program in Noble County, OH, from exploration to development mode, after seeing encouraging results and data from its test wells and those of its competitors in the play.

Abraxas Petroleum Corp. said a recent Eagle Ford Shale well has been performing better than expected, but its operations in the Williston Basin in North Dakota have been hampered by equipment troubles.

This year will be a busy one for oil and gas operators in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) in terms of new regulations, said an official for a group representing the offshore industries.

After hitting a low point five years ago, associated gas is projected to grow to more than 12 Bcf/d, or about 15% of the North American natural gas supplies in 2020, according to a report released Tuesday by Canadian-based Ziff Energy.

This year will be a busy one for oil and gas operators in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) in terms of new regulations, said an official for a group representing the offshore industries.

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.

The four top natural gas producing states in the Lower 48 states — Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Wyoming — are collecting severance taxes on their dry gas of between 14.7 and 18.5 cents/Mcf based on recent gas prices, according to a review of regulations and taxes by Washington, DC-based Resources for the Future’s Center for Energy Economics and Policy (CEEP).