Uptick

Natural gas drilling continued to decline in the fourth quarter, despite an uptick in exploratory gas drilling for the period, the American Petroleum Institute (API) said in a report on well completions for the quarter.

Natural gas drilling continued to decline in the fourth quarter, despite an uptick in exploratory drilling, the American Petroleum Institute (API) said in a report on well completions. “In the year-to-date comparison, gas well completions have decreased 26%” to 9,752 wells in 2012 from 13,128 wells in 2011. At the same time, oil well drilling rose, with exploratory and development wells showing a 15% and 16% increase respectively from 4Q2011 numbers. “The oil and natural gas industry expanded oil drilling in 2012, thanks in large part to access on private and state lands,” said API Statistics Director Hazem Arafa. A year-to-date comparison of oil wells drilled yields a 25% increase in total well completions between 2011 and 2012 (26,213 to 32,652).

In reporting a sharp uptick in quarter-over-quarter earnings Monday, PG&E Corp. CEO Anthony Earley predicted that its San Francisco-based utility, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., will resolve pending regulatory and enforcement issues related to the fatal San Bruno natural gas transmission pipeline rupture and explosion two years ago.

Coal-to-gas switching, increased power generation use, a slight uptick in industrial demand and a few gas field shut ins have helped a bit to reduce U.S. gas storage levels, but unless weekly storage injections remain below 2 Bcf/d through the rest of the injection season, some energy analysts think maximum levels will be reached by mid September.

An uptick in Marcellus Shale development last year didn’t keep an independent auditor from certifying Pennsylvania’s state forests as sustainably managed.

Comstock Resources Inc. has established a new core area in the Delaware Basin in West Texas, agreeing to pay Eagle Oil & Gas Co. $332.7 million for approximately 68,000 gross (44,000 net) acres in Reeves County, TX, the Frisco, TX-based company said. The deal is expected to close by the end of this month.

An apparent uptick in approved permits in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GOM) has boosted investor enthusiasm about the near-term prospects for offshore activity but the backlog of permits issued but not yet drilled paints a different picture, according to an analysis by FBR Capital Markets.

Backlog of permits issued but not yet drilled paints a different picture, says FBR Capital Markets.

A flurry of shale business combinations over the last three years “are just the beginning of an asset shift in the industry,” according to a report issued by PricewaterhouseCoopers USA (PwC).