Shale Daily

Calgary-based Pembina Pipeline Corp. has inked agreements for an $85 million expansion of the Vantage pipeline system, which it bought last year.

With restructuring completed and streamlined operations, Encana Corp. could make a play for strategic assets in North America’s onshore, CEO Doug Suttles said Wednesday.

Not long ago, Texas could boast about half of the nation’s operating drilling rigs. The Lone Star State’s slice of the drilling pie — a shrinking pie at that — is now down to 46% as producers drop rigs in a low-price environment. January well completions were down almost 45% from a year ago, according to the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC).

Ohio’s horizontal shale wells produced 3.5 million bbl of oil and about 164.8 Bcf of natural gas in the fourth quarter, according to newly released data from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR).

Chesapeake Energy Corp. has cut its 2015 capital spending plans by more than one-third and trimmed its rig count to the lowest level in 11 years, but production still should increase by 3-5%, lifted, perhaps surprisingly, by the Haynesville Shale and Mississippian Lime.

In an effort to find more savings and better manage its underperforming assets in the Midcontinent, Range Resources Corp. has closed its Oklahoma City division office and cut 8% of its workforce.

Continental Resources Inc. and Newfield Exploration Co., two companies devoted to drilling in the South Central Oklahoma Oil Province (SCOOP), said separately they plan to intensify their focus on the legacy play in 2015, while scaling back capital expenditure (capex) dollars and rigs in other unconventional areas.

Depressed commodity prices and producer cutbacks are the order of the day, but it was only last year that Texas set a record for state/local taxes and royalties collected from the oil and gas industry.

The United States may have become the world’s swing oil producer but it won’t be for too long, according to BHP Billiton plc.