Bakken Shale

Seeking to improve its financial and competitive positions, Denver-based QEP Resources unit QEP Field Services is selling its natural gas-rich midstream assets to Tesoro Logistic LP (TLLP) in an all-cash transaction valued at $2.5 billion.

Bakken sweet crude oil on Wednesday was fetching $66.25/bbl, prompting North Dakota’s chief oil/natural gas regulator to spend most of his time during a monthly production webinar lamenting the possibility of future slowed production in the state’s otherwise uninterrupted oil boom.

Production from the seven most prolific U.S. shale and tight oil regions in November is expected to reach 43.28 Bcf/d of natural gas (up 1.4% from October ) and 5.14 million b/d of crude oil (up 2.4% from this month), according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Oil and natural gas production continued to climb in North Dakota in August, but at a more modest pace, the state’s latest monthly statistics revealed Wednesday.

A strong majority of potential voters in four western states support government mandates for oil/natural gas operators to greatly cut amounts of flared wellhead associated gas, according to a recent survey completed for the nonprofit Western Values Project (WVP).

Houston-based Oasis Petroleum Inc. continued water and soil sampling Monday after one of its pipelines spewed 42,000 gallons of salty wastewater into a pool and small creek that are part of a tributary to a Missouri River reservoir in McKenzie County in northwest North Dakota.

Atlas Resource Partners LP (ARP) executives plan to put a herculean effort toward demonstrating the value of the exploration and production (E&P) assets as it prepares to spin off from its parent following a merger agreement with Targa Resources Corp.

With significant new pipeline capacity not likely before some time in 2016, burgeoning Bakken crude oil production in North Dakota will continue to rely on rail to access the three coasts: East, West and Gulf, according to a report by Fitch Ratings.

Exactly a year after it said parts of its 2.5 million acres in the Midcontinent could be up for sale, a Houston-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. (Oxy) spokesperson refused to comment Thursday on rumors in North Dakota that Oxy was selling all of its more than 330,000 acres in the Williston Basin for an asking price of $3 billion.