Totaled

Winning bids in Wednesday’s Alaska Department of Natural Resources (DNR) oil and gas lease sales for the North Slope, North Slope Foothills and the Beaufort Sea totaled $14.2 million, $11.5 million of which came from the North Slope sale, DNR said, adding that the results indicate continued interest in the region’s hydrocarbon resources.

New wells in the nation’s shale plays helped push natural gas production higher in Texas and some other states in August, but it wasn’t enough to keep the U.S. total from sliding to 76.60 Bcf/d, a 3.4% decline compared with 79.33 Bcf/d in July, according to the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest Monthly Natural Gas Gross Production report.

Domestic natural gas production will be at an all-time high this year and is expected to break that record for a third consecutive year in 2013, thanks in large part to the nation’s booming shale plays, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its Short Term Energy Outlook for September.

Gasfrac Energy Services Inc., which has been attempting to muscle into the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) market with its waterless technology, hit some roadblocks in 2Q2012, in part because the pressure pumping market is bursting at the seams, company officials said Thursday.

When the payouts and penalties are totaled for the Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) transmission pipeline rupture and explosion in San Bruno, CA, almost two years ago, the utility may pay as much as $2 billion, CEO Tony Earley said last week in San Francisco.

Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) office in Alaska has issued a call for nominations and comments on tracts for oil and leases to be offered in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A) in November. The notice, which was published in the Federal Register, is subject to a 45-day comment period. This is the second consecutive annual sale that President Obama has directed BLM to hold in the NPR-A. The first NPR-A sale in 2011 generated bids totaling more than $3.6 million (see NGI, Dec. 12, 2011). BLM Alaska said it plans to offer 630 tracts on 7.1 million acres in the upcoming lease lease, which would be more than double what was offered in 2011. The tracts to be auctioned would be within the Northeast and Northwest Planning Areas of the NPR-A, according to the notice. The U.S. Geological Survey in 2010 estimated that the NPR-A, which covers 22.8 million acres on Alaska’s North Slope, holds approximately 896 million bbl of oil and 53 Tcf of natural gas. Both figures were below what the agency estimated in 2002. BLM Alaska said it must receive all nominations and comments on the tracts for consideration by June 29. The nominations and/or comments should be sent to the State Director, Bureau of Land Management, Alaska State Office, 222 West 7th Ave., Mailstop 13, Anchorage, AK 99513-7504. For further information, contact Deputy State Director Ted Murphy at (907) 271-4413.

One day after purchasing natural gas processing facilities and associated infrastructure in the Marcellus and Utica shale plays, MarkWest Energy Partners LP said it plans to remain independent and will allocate more toward capital expenditures (capex) in 2012.

With net production up more than 83% from the prior-year quarter, Antero Resources said Monday that it plans to expand its operations in the Marcellus Shale but will hold the line in the Piceance Basin and the Woodford and Fayetteville shales.

When the payouts and penalties are totaled on the aftermath of the Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) transmission pipeline rupture and explosion in San Bruno, CA, almost two years ago, the utility may pay as much as $2 billion, PG&E CEO Tony Earley told news media at a press conference Monday in San Francisco.