Eagle Ford Shale

A Texas House committee hearing of two bills intended to rein in municipalities’ regulation of drilling activities drew a standing-room-only crowd Monday afternoon and impassioned argument from both sides.

Trace gas emissions and fine particulates are undergoing scrutiny at U.S. onshore production sites over the next two months to determine how air quality is affected.

If the Baker Hughes Inc. rotary rig count for North America during the March 23-27 week drops by 113, the tally of active rigs will be half of what it was a year ago. The count for the week ending March 20 shows a decline of 136 rigs in North America at 1,209 active, and that’s down 983 from one year ago.

Crude oil production fell in the Eagle Ford and Bakken shales but increased in the Permian Basin in February, while natural gas production accelerated in the Haynesville Shale and isn’t projected to slow down through April, according to drilling productivity reports by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Two weeks after divesting all of its East Texas and non-core Louisiana assets to its master limited partnership (MLP), executives with Memorial Resource Development Corp. (MRD) said their company is now a pure-play exploration and production (E&P) outfit focused on redeveloping a legacy oil and gas field in Louisiana.

If the economic health of the Texas oil and gas industry were an elevator, its only direction would be down — down for crude oil prices, rig count, drilling permits and employment — and for the Texas Petro Index (TPI), which most recently has shed seven points, according to an economist who has been keeping score.

Conventional business wisdom continues to prevail in unconventional plays; that is to say, producers are going where the money is and pursuing the most economical oil/gas opportunities in the low-price environment.

The economics of most U.S. natural gas plays, wet or dry, now are below breakeven levels after suffering as a result of the decline in commodity prices, according to a Barclays Capital analysis. Surprisingly to some perhaps, the Marcellus Shale was not the lowest-cost basin overall.

Bills recently introduced in the Texas legislature intended to thwart local municipality interference with oil and gas drilling have raised the ire of the Texas Municipal League (TML), but an industry trade association said the proposed changes would strengthen the relationship between the state and cities in oil/gas regulation.