Permian Basin

Devon Energy Corp. expects to ramp up to 20 rigs by the end of 2017 as it focuses on oilier opportunities in the Permian Basin and Oklahoma’s STACK (aka, the Sooner Trend of the Anadarko Basin, mostly in Canadian and Kingfisher counties).

Back in the black and confident its refocused operations will stay there with a Permian Basin emphasis, Occidental Petroleum Corp. (Oxy) on Thursday detailed its deployment of various analytics to get better results out of reconfigured reserves following the sale of its South Texas assets.

The Permian Basin’s Delaware play gave a solid assist to Anadarko Petroleum Corp. volumes in the first quarter, but new regulatory scrutiny in its other big onshore play, the Denver-Julesburg Basin in Colorado, weighed on investor sentiment Wednesday.

ConocoPhillips Lower 48 unconventional production troughed a bit sooner than the company expected — during the first quarter instead of the second. And now production is up from what was only recently planned, Alan Hirshberg, executive vice president for production, drilling and projects said Tuesday.

Brazos Midstream Holdings LLC has completed multiple crude oil and gas gathering and processing projects in the southern Delaware Basin, a subbasin of the Permian Basin that is one of the most active oil- and gas-producing basins in the United States. Brazos commenced operation of a new 60 MMcf/d gas processing plant (Comanche I), several new compressor stations and 150 miles of large-diameter, low- and high-pressure gas gathering pipelines. The project also included the construction of 35 miles of crude oil gathering pipelines, two crude oil storage terminals with a combined capacity of 50,000 bbl and connections to multiple downstream crude oil pipelines. Brazos also has begun construction of a second gas processing plant (Comanche II), which will add 200 MMcf/d of capacity. Comanche II is expected to be operational during the first quarter of 2018 and will increase Brazos’ total operated processing capacity in the Delaware Basin to 260 MMcf/d.

Centennial Resource Development Inc. on Monday agreed to ante up $350 million to GMT Exploration Co. to expand its Permian Basin holdings into New Mexico’s Delaware sub-basin.

With a definite shift in emphasis to its Permian Basin assets, Denver-based QEP Resources Inc. executives signaled on Thursday that the company is preparing to divest its Pinedale assets in Wyoming to focus on the Williston and Permian basins.

Clayton Williams Energy Inc. officially became a subsidiary of Noble Energy Inc. on Monday under the name NBL Permian LLC.

Plains All American Pipeline LP is testing support in a potential 350,000 b/d project to carry crude oil from the Permian Basin to its terminal in Cushing, OK.