Shale Daily

Anadarko Petroleum Corp. achieved record U.S. onshore sales volumes in the final three months of 2013, delivering 609,000 boe/d, including better-than-expected oil output from Colorado’s Wattenberg field and Eagle Ford Shale, and from higher natural gas growth in the Haynesville and Marcellus shales.

While continuing to cash in on the robust oil and natural growth in its home-based Bakken Shale play, Bismarck, ND-based MDU Resources Group’s exploration/production (E&P) unit looks to expand elsewhere with its increased activity in Utah’s Paradox Basin and an as-yet-unspecified third major oil play.

A quartet of Marcellus and Utica shale producers has signed up for all of the capacity — 550,000 Dth/d — on what would be a new pipeline route out of Ohio to the Gulf Coast.

Shale gas picked up some kudos in the prepared speech Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett delivered Tuesday to discuss his proposed $29.4 billion budget, but no mention was made of controversies surrounding it, such as a possible severance tax or the ongoing legal battle over Act 13, the state’s omnibus Marcellus Shale law.

Historic flooding that took its toll in the heart of Colorado oil and natural gas production in the Denver-Julesburg Basin last September (see Shale Daily, Oct. 10, 2013) will be the subject of a half-day workshop Thursday afternoon hosted by the state’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (OGCC) to discuss “lessons learned” and whether new policies and rules are needed. Record-breaking floods along the Front Range and eastern plain in September inundated oil and gas operations near streams, damaging production facilities and producing spills of oil, condensate and produced water, according to OGCC. Colorado Oil and Gas Association CEO Tisha Schuller is expected to make a presentation at the workshop.

Dallas-based Southcross Energy Partners LP has begun construction of a 94-mile, 24-inch diameter pipeline in the rich gas area of the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas. The Webb Pipeline is expected to have initial uncompressed capacity of 300 MMcf/d.

ExxonMobil Corp.’s onshore U.S. subsidiary on Monday agreed to buy oily land in the Permian Basin of Texas and sell natural gas-weighted Utica Shale property in Ohio.

American Energy Partners LP (AEP-LP) announced Monday that one of its affiliates has signed three separate agreements to purchase approximately 130,000 net acres in the southern Utica Shale, boosting its position there to 260,000 net acres.

Lifted by record natural gas production from the shale-rich Lower 48 category, overall U.S. production also reached a historic high in November, according to the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Monthly Natural Gas Gross Production Report.