Shale Daily

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) said a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell plc wants to pay for relocating a portion of a state highway and for improvements to an interchange with an interstate highway in order to accommodate a proposed “world class” ethane cracker in the western part of the state.

A pair of pipeline projects designed to carry natural gas from the Marcellus Shale to markets in the Northeast would have adverse environmental impacts that could be mitigated, FERC said Wednesday.

A strategy shift by natural gas heavyweight Encana Corp. helped the independent to increase its onshore liquids output in the final period of 2013 by 82%, with full-year production 74% higher.

U.S. Silica Holdings Inc. and Union Pacific Railroad Co. have struck a deal to build a rail-accessible silica sand storage facility in Odessa, TX, a move that enables the company to bring more of its products to the Permian Basin for hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations.

A fire that erupted Tuesday morning at a Chevron Appalachia LLC natural gas well site in Greene County, PA continued to burn Wednesday, and it may not be clear for some time what caused it, officials said.

Pioneer Natural Resources Co. plans to keep tearing it up in the Midland Basin of West Texas, where horizontal drilling in the Spraberry/Wolfcamp, as well as in the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas, grew reserves and production during a year that CEO Scott Sheffield said was “…the best year in Pioneer’s 17-year history.”

One week after executives at MDU Resources Group Inc. said the company was looking to drill for oil and natural gas in a third play, their exploration and production (E&P) unit, Fidelity Exploration & Production Co., had agreed to purchase working interests (WI) and a leasehold in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin.

Republicans in the Ohio House of Representatives have revised an oil and natural gas severance tax proposal and are calling for a slightly higher rate, which many believe may have a better chance of passing the Democratic-controlled state senate.

The abundance of market-area gas that has crushed basis differentials and flattened seasonal spreads has bedeviled Boardwalk Pipeline Partners LP for several quarters now. But on Monday investors got pinched hard when the partnership cut its distribution by 81% and the price of its units plunged 46%.