Where

Nearly half of the U.S. oil and natural gas merger and acquisition (M&A) activity during the third quarter was driven by shale plays, according to the latest survey by consultancy PwC US.

Fort Worth City Council members got an earful Tuesday night from a standing-room-only audience about a proposal to tighten drilling restrictions in the Barnett Shale town. Protected use areas, multiple well pad site permitting and saltwater disposal are among the items being weighed.

The earnings season for North America’s oil and natural gas companies kicks off Monday with Halliburton Co., and analysts will be tuned in for signals about where capital spending is going in 2012. Many admit that it’s been difficult to get a fix, in part because of global economic turmoil, but also because of relentless domestic natural gas production.

The earnings season for North America’s oil and natural gas companies kicks off Monday with Halliburton Co., and analysts will be tuned in for signals about where capital spending is going in 2012. Many admit that it’s been difficult to get a fix, in part because of global economic turmoil, but also because of relentless domestic natural gas production.

The fallout from last year’s fatal San Bruno natural gas transmission pipeline rupture has spilled into Southern California where two 40-year-old butane storage tanks operated by a unit of a Houston-based company are stirring up local safety concerns. Three different risk scenarios completed in the past two years have stimulated debate.

Water services company Heckmann Corp. reiterated its emphasis on serving shale gas and oil developers in the United States in announcing the divestment of China Water & Drinks Inc. through the sale of nine of its 25 Chinese legal entities to Pacific Water & Drinks (HK) Group Ltd. (PWD). The deal closed Sept. 30, and Heckmann will no longer have business exposure in China except through its equity holding in PWD. “With our positive view of our current core water business and the growth opportunities in the United States, we are pleased to put the China experience behind us,” said CEO Richard J. Heckmann. “We now have almost 1,100 employees in the U.S., up from fewer than 30 a year ago. We believe that the water business as it relates to shale gas and shale oil production will continue to drive our growth. In addition, the customer reaction to our conversion to LNG [liquefied natural gas] powered vehicles [see Shale Daily, Aug. 23], which we are now putting in service, has been very positive.”

The Utica Shale could be worth $500 billion, and the “biggest thing economically to hit Ohio, since maybe the plow,” Chesapeake Energy Corp. CEO Aubrey McClendon told an audience in Ohio on Wednesday.

Swift Energy Co. agreed to sell its interests in six fields in South Louisiana, two in Texas and one in Alabama to an undisclosed private oil and gas company for $53.5 million. Swift said it would use the proceeds to fund a portion its 2011 capital expenditures. Production attributable to the fields being sold averaged 10.6 MMcfe/d during 1Q2011 with aggregate proved reserves of 92.2 Bcfe (19% proved developed producing and 65% natural gas) at year-end 2010. The sale is expected to close within the next two months.

Columbia Gas said final testing was occurring Tuesday morning at its Milford location, where a long-running outage has been in place, and it anticipated that intraday nominations might be possible.