Understanding

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.

Energy imports into the United States and Canada will be “down to almost zero” by 2040, an ExxonMobil Corp. executive said Thursday.

Tracking potential impacts of Marcellus Shale drilling activity on water quality will be the focus of a $750,000 research grant from the National Science Foundation, according to Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), which is to lead the collaboration.

Two technology firms on Thursday partnered to create an engineering and geoscience “solution” to allow unconventional oil and gas operators to incorporate microseismic data and hydraulic fracturing designs to help them model their well fractures.

Approximately 84 Tcf of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas and 3.4 billion bbl of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas liquids (NGL) are contained in the Marcellus Shale, according to a new assessment by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Furthering its plans to acquire approximately 3,650 net acres of Marcellus Shale leasehold, Westmont Resources Inc. on Friday said it has signed a memorandum of understanding for the acquisition of a 252-acre oil and gas leasehold in Pennsylvania’s southwest tier.

A bill in a Texas House committee if passed would repeal a natural gas drilling tax break that benefits the vast majority of wells in the state’s shale gas plays. The bill’s sponsor says the incentive has outlived its usefulness, but an industry advocate claims its repeal would be a gas production- and job-killer.

Targa Resources Partners has signed a nonbinding memorandum of understanding (MOU) for development of a pipeline to transport y-grade natural gas liquids (NGL) from processing facilities in the Eagle Ford Shale to Mont Belvieu, TX, and a new fractionation train at the Targa-operated Cedar Bayou fractionation facility (CBF).

The oil shale reserves in the Green River Formation are equal to the world’s proven oil reserves, according to the federal government.