E&P

North America’s natural gas production is projected to grow by about 75% from 2010 to 2040 to around 140 Bcf/d, as unconventional output nearly triples, ExxonMobil Corp. said Tuesday. Within five years, North America should surpass the Russia/Caspian region as the largest gas-producing region in the world.

Unseasonably cold weather east of the Rockies in November prompted record high withdrawals of natural gas from natural gas storage, which in turn will keep end-of-March 2015 inventories lower than previously expected, but gas prices this winter will average just $3.98/MMBtu, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Western states value the economic potential inherent in capturing methane that otherwise would be vented into the atmosphere during oil and natural gas production, the Western Governors’ Association (WGA) said in a resolution passed Saturday during a winter WGA meeting in Las Vegas, NV.

A small group of natural gas wells in the U.S. onshore may account for a majority of the methane emissions linked to two major sources — pneumatic controllers and liquid unloadings — researchers at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) said Tuesday.

The natural gas industry lauded the results of a second methane emissions study conducted by the University of Texas at Austin (UT) and sponsored by the Environmental Defense Fund as proof that producers are leading the effort to reduce emissions.

Stone Energy Corp.’s first Utica Shale well in West Virginia’s Wetzel County had a peak five-day test rate of 30 MMcf/d, the company said, in yet another confirmation of the formation’s potential in the state, where multiple operators began testing it this year (see Shale Daily, March 26).

EQT Corp. released a capital expenditures budget Monday that came with few surprises and largely met analysts’ expectations, with spending up slightly from the company’s 2014 budget and forecasted production up 25% year-over-year at the midpoint.

Tesoro Logistics LP (TLLP) has completed its $2.5 billion acquisition of Denver-based QEP Resources Inc.’s natural gas gathering and processing business and other midstream units. The deal was originally announced in October (see Shale Daily, Oct. 20).

While it has a phase-out process running into 2017 for old (DOT-111) rail tank cars that carry crude oil, Canada’s Transport Department (CTD) has accelerated the process by banning nearly 3,000 of the older model cars from carrying “dangerous goods” throughout the nation.