Bakken Shale

At a torch-passing of sorts Wednesday, both outgoing and incoming CEOs for Marathon Oil Corp. had plenty to say about the Bakken and Eagle Ford shale plays, but new CEO Lee Tillman spoke more loudly about future opportunities during a second quarter earnings conference call in which results were said to be up sharply.

Production of crude oil, condensate, natural gas liquids (NGL) and other liquids was up 30% in 2Q2013 at EOG Resources compared with 2Q2012, and the Houston-based company expects significant increases to come in the full year 2013.

Levying the largest civil penalty ever — $1.5 million — for an oil and natural gas violation, the North Dakota Industrial Commission (NDIC) last Wednesday found a small operator, Halek Operating ND LLC, guilty of violating state standards for disposing of salt water, a byproduct of oil production, in an injection well.

WPX Energy has achieved its second exploratory success of the year, this time from the Mancos Gallup Sandstone formation in the oil window of Northwest New Mexico’s San Juan Basin, company management said during an earnings conference call.

ConocoPhillips saw its combined production in the Permian Basin, Eagle Ford and Bakken shales nearly double during 2Q2013, and it expects to see future growth from its holdings as it transitions to multi-well pad drilling and experiments with tighter well spacing and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) stages.