E&P

Rig count might be the headline number in the shale patch, but when it comes to estimating future production from rig census, increasing rig efficiency and well productivity can make the calculation complicated.

A group of more than 40 local elected, business, labor and community leaders in Ohio has formed a coalition to challenge Republican Gov. John Kasich’s 6.5% severance tax proposal on unconventional oil and natural gas production.

A bill that would put in place a three-year moratorium on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has been approved by one branch of the legislature in Maryland, a state that has potential natural gas deposits only in its two westernmost counties and has seen virtually no interest in developing those limited assets.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) has ordered an independent oilfield services company to cease operations and remove equipment at a site in Jefferson County after it learned from grassroots organizations that the company was operating illegally.

Even in a depressed global oil market, keeping U.S. crude production tied up at home imposes a significant cost on U.S. producers, according to a Rice University researcher. Further, exporting crude would not raise domestic gasoline prices but would improve national energy security, he said.

U.S. natural gas supplies should be about 3.1 Bcf/d higher this summer than a year ago, but incremental demand is forecast to be lower, which would keep the markets long through the injection season, Genscape Inc. analysts said Wednesday.

Less than one week after the Department of Interior (DOI) issued its long-awaited rule for hydraulic fracturing (fracking) on public and tribal lands, members of a U.S. House panel used an oversight hearing Thursday as an opportunity to grill Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Director Neil Kornze over what they perceive as the rule’s shortcomings and overreach.

In separate announcements, Consol Energy Inc. and Rice Energy Inc., two heavyweights in the Appalachian Basin, said they are looking to raise more than $1 billion through private offerings, as both look to weather low commodity prices.

Spending on upstream investments by nearly two dozen international oil and natural gas companies in the final three months of 2014 was down $77 billion (12%) compared with the same period in 2013, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).