E&P

Warren Resources Inc. said Tuesday that after two weeks on flowback, the company’s first two Marcellus Shale wells are producing at a combined rate of 17 MMcf/d.

Oil and natural gas activity in a contentious part of the Mancos Shale can continue, a federal district judge in New Mexico decreed Friday in rejecting an injunction request from Navajo and environmental group attorneys for tribal and federal-managed lands near the Chaco Culture National Historical Park.

An adviser to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf on Monday released an 84-page report assessing the risk that crude oil trains pose as they pass through the state, recommending 27 steps that could be taken to make the transport safer.

With a new swarm of 3.1-magnitude earthquakes not far from Oklahoma City, state regulators earlier this month ordered cutbacks in disposal well operations in specific areas (see Shale Daily,Aug. 4), but some industry observers see that action spreading throughout the state eventually. The first phase of the cutbacks takes effect Aug. 23.

Finding and repairing leaks, capturing natural gas from the completion of hydraulically fractured oil wells, and limiting emissions from new and modified pneumatic pumps and equipment used at transmission compressor stations would cut methane emissions as much as 400,000 short tons by 2025, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said Tuesday.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell last Friday called out a new Bureau of Land Management (BLM) master leasing plan (MLP) for federal lands in east-central Utah as a model for how communities can balance oil/natural gas development with protection of iconic landscapes such as the lands around Moab, UT. The plan begins a 90-day comment period Friday, but some industry sources are already calling the MLP redundant.

Startling exceptions to gloom pervading first-half 2015 corporate statements confirm that a sweet spot — where rich resources compensate for poor prices — is emerging in Western Canada’s endowment of natural gas steeped in liquid byproducts.

EV Energy Partners LP (EVEP) saw its production decline during the second quarter with bad weather in Texas and Appalachian Basin maintenance shut-ins, but the company is keeping a sharp eye on its estimate of $9 billion in assets on, or soon to be on, the market.

Anticipating and advocating the proposed Obama administration methane emissions rules, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) representatives on Monday mounted their soapbox again to beat the drum for tough new requirements that will support the administration’s stated goal of reducing the emissions 40-45% by 2025.