E&P

Trace gas emissions and fine particulates are undergoing scrutiny at U.S. onshore production sites over the next two months to determine how air quality is affected.

Global upstream spending began to peak last year before the oil price meltdown, but the sharp cuts in capital expenditures (capex) for 2015 have moved into a league of their own, i.e. “austerity on steroids,” according to Raymond James & Associates Inc.

A Texas House committee hearing of two bills intended to rein in municipalities’ regulation of drilling activities drew a standing-room-only crowd Monday afternoon and impassioned argument from both sides.

In a sign that a potential sale of Whiting Petroleum Corp., the largest producer in the Bakken Shale, was unlikely in the near term, the company announced plans to issue 35 million shares of common stock and $1.75 billion in debt.

Shale drillers continued to account for a larger share of Ohio’s oil and gas activity last year, with unconventional operators leading the way in the number of well completions, volumes produced and permits issued, according to an annual report from one of the state’s leading trade groups.

Southwestern Energy Co., which has begun to concentrate its exploration in the Marcellus Shale over the past few months, on Friday agreed to sell conventional natural gas leaseholds in East Texas and the Arkoma Basin of Arkansas for $218 million.

Fairmount Santrol, one of the largest sand and resin-coated sand providers in the U.S. onshore, continues to see customers expand their use of proppants in each hydraulic fracturing stage, even with the downturn in the marketplace.

The deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GOM) is proving to be a haven for big producing projects, and it’s bucking the low-price environment, with growth expected to continue through 2016, according to Wood Mackenzie Ltd.

An analyst with Barclays said the Department of Interior’s (DOI) rule for hydraulic fracturing (fracking) on public and tribal lands would have a limited effect on oil and natural gas output, but states that currently have no laws governing fracking could use the federal rule as a template.