Three

Lone Star Fractionator I in Mont Belvieu, TX, a 100,000 b/d natural gas liquids (NGL) facility designed to handle prolific NGL production in the Permian and Eagle Ford regions, is now in service, according to Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) and Regency Energy Partners.

Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. brought online two new company-operated Eagle Ford Shale wells three days before Christmas. The wells’ best-ever results for the company in the Eagle Ford could have Magnum Hunter rethinking its idea of divesting Eagle Ford properties, said CEO Gary C. Evans.

The next three months will average colder than normal across much of the northern United States, with arctic air expected to be a “frequent guest in [the] largest gas-demand population centers,” said forecasters at Andover, MA-based Weather Services International (WSI).

Houston-based Spectra Energy Corp. said Tuesday it has secured one of the three major pipeline systems that move western Canadian crude oil to refineries in the Rockies and Midwest, agreeing to purchase the entire ownership interest in the 1,717-mile Express-Platte Pipeline System. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2013.

In an effort to determine which government agency has oversight authority for the Bushton, KS, natural gas liquids (NGL) fractionation plant, three subsidiaries of Oneok Partners LP have filed a declaratory judgment action in federal District Court in Tulsa, OK, seeking a ruling on the jurisdictional limits of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA).

Following the release earlier this year of a report on alternative technologies for using flared natural gas, the Energy and Environmental Research Center (EERC) in North Dakota is set to launch a bi-fuel (natural gas/diesel) drilling rig power source in a demonstration project starting early next year, the center’s associate director told NGI’s Shale Daily Thursday.

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.

Atlas Resource Partners LP (ARP) has picked up its third big leasehold this year in the Barnett Shale by agreeing to pay $255 million to DTE Energy Co. for an affiliate that owns close to 35 million boe of proved reserves in the Fort Worth Basin and in the Marble Falls, TX, area.

Ryckman Creek Resources LLC, a unit of Peregrine Midstream Partners LLC, said it received bids for three and a half times the capacity offered during a recent open season for firm gas storage service at its high-deliverability, multi-cycle Ryckman Creek Gas Storage facility in Uinta County, WY. The offer of 8 Bcf of capacity available April 1 received market-priced bids from 23 companies, the company said. The facility began commercial operations last August (see Daily GPI, Aug. 22). “We will now begin working with the top bidders to finalize new firm service agreements that will commence next spring with our initial firm service agreements that we entered into after our first open season two years ago,” said Peregrine COO Jeff Foutch.