E&P

Pioneer Natural Resources Co. more than tripled the number of rigs it has deployed in the Permian Basin’s Spraberry and Wolfcamp formations during the first quarter of 2014, a move that helped the company beat its production guidance and grow its oil production.

Too much information (TMI) from the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS)? Not a chance. Activity in the Louisiana-Mississippi play continues to gather pace, and analysts can’t wait to hear more about well results from producers there, Goodrich Petroleum Corp., for instance, which these days is pretty much all about the TMS.

Gulfport Energy Corp. on Thursday announced a drastic shift in its strategy to develop the Utica Shale, defying expectations and scaling-back its drilling and completion plans in favor of a slower approach aimed at long-term growth that found analysts on edge and sent the company’s stock plummeting.

Midstream operators MarkWest Energy Partners and DCP Midstream Partners each had strong first quarters, opening a plethora of infrastructure and processing facilities in U.S. shale plays, and recording significant earnings increases, the companies said in separate announcements this week.

Four onshore operators on Tuesday were dividing up a bundle of properties in the Midcontinent and Williston Basin being sold by a unit of QEP Resources Inc.

Encana Corp. on Wednesday doubled its current oil production in one swift move by agreeing to pay $3.1 billion for a slice of the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas.

The recent proliferation of local government proposals to curb or ban oil/natural gas activity, including hydraulic fracturing (fracking), is not immediately ringing any alarm bells in the newly relocated Houston executive offices of Occidental Petroleum Corp. (Oxy) as it works to spin off its multi-billion-dollar California operations into a separate company.

Ultra Petroleum Corp. ramped up production of crude oil and condensate during the first quarter, keeping its sights trained on oil targets in Wyoming’s Pinedale Anticline and Utah’s Uinta Basin while continuing to spin down its activity in the Marcellus Shale.

An explosion and fire at Williams Company’s Opal, WY, processing plant last month put only limited pressure on natural gas prices in the region, and Henry Hub spot prices are expected to decline through this summer, but not to the depths previously forecast, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).