Bakken Shale

Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. keeps whittling away at its North Dakota portfolio, announcing late Thursday another deal to sell more of its nonoperated Bakken Shale assets, this time divesting 12,500 net acres for $84.7 million to a large undisclosed independent.

Natural Resource Partners LP (NRP) has agreed to pay Kaiser-Francis Oil Co. $340 million to increase its oil and gas holdings in the Bakken/Three Forks formation of the Williston Basin.

Continuing its push to divest non-core assets across the country in favor of its properties in the Utica and Marcellus shales, Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. has completed the sale of its non-operated working interests in Divide County, ND, for more than $23 million.

A proposed pipeline project for moving swelling supplies of Bakken crude oil in North Dakota has hit a roadblock in neighboring Minnesota, causing its sponsor, Canadian-based Enbridge Energy Partners LP, to report Wednesday that the project will be delayed at least a year.

Tallgrass Pony Express Pipeline LLC is proposing to more than double the capacity of its crude oil pipeline system by expanding into several areas of Colorado and Wyoming, including the Denver-Julesburg (DJ) Basin, the Niobrara and Codell formations, the Bakken Shale and the Powder River Basin.

The competition between rail and pipelines for moving Bakken sweet light crude oil in North Dakota will continue to be brisk, driven by WTI and Brent price spreads and by the ultimate added costs from stepped-up regulation of crude-by-rail transportation, according to an analysis by the University of Texas Center for Energy Economics (CEE) in Austin.

Hess Corp. subsidiary Hess Midstream Partners LP has filed paperwork with federal regulators for an initial public offering (IPO) to launch in 1Q2015.

North Dakota’s state lawmakers continue to scramble to maintain and expand infrastructure impacted by the oil/natural gas boom in the state that spills over from the Bakken/Three Forks shale plays into the western counties and local communities.

Energy Transfer Partners LP (ETP) is holding a binding open season for transportation service on the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and Energy Transfer Crude Oil Pipeline (ETCOP).