Shale Daily

Consol Energy Inc. announced Tuesday that 11 wells the company has drilled targeting the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania — with shorter stage lengths, reduced cluster spacing and other modifications — have collectively achieved an average initial production rate of 10.7 MMcfe/d. A similar well in neighboring West Virginia was also placed into production.

California energy officials on Tuesday began a series of five public meetings to take comments on the scope of the draft environmental impact report (EIR) for the state’s new rules for hydraulic fracturing (fracking) under a state law (SB 4) passed earlier this year (see Shale Daily, Sept. 23).

Two independent producers unveiled their capital expenditure budgets this week and gave an early update on production guidance for 2014 in basins stretching from Texas to the Rocky Mountains.

It appears as though Rice Energy Inc. will become the next pure-play Appalachian operator to go public after the company confirmed months of rumors this week that it plans to make an offering sometime in the next month and begin trading shares during the first quarter.

QEP Resources Inc. subsidiary QEP Energy Co. is acquiring oil and gas properties in the Permian Basin for $950 million from EnerVest Ltd. and plans to sell noncore Midcontinent assets as it becomes more oil- and natural gas liquids-focused, the company said Monday.

Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. (COG) impressed the marketplace on Monday with some astonishing results from a 10-well pad in the Marcellus Shale, delivering on a promise to up its game there with longer laterals, more frack stages and more efficient well pads.

Under a new deal announced Monday by Houston-based Prometheus Energy Group Inc., Apache Corp. will expand its use of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations. The agreement is an expansion of an existing contract between the two Houston-based energy companies.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said Monday that the Marcellus Shale region is expected to provide 18% of the country’s natural gas production in December as more takeaway capacity has come online and operators continue to maximize drilling efficiencies in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Bluegrass Pipeline LLC, a joint venture of Williams and Boardwalk Pipeline Partners LP, extended its binding open season through Jan. 17 to give prospective shippers more time to evaluate the pipeline project and its market outlet options, Bluegrass said. The project would provide natural gas liquids (NGL) transportation capacity from the Marcellus and Utica shales to the petrochemical and export complex on the U.S. Gulf Coast (see Shale Daily,March 7). The open season began Oct. 29. Bluegrass is in a horse race with a competing Marcellus-Gulf Coast NGL pipeline project proposed by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP and MarkWest Utica EMG LLC (see Shale Daily,Oct. 17). For documents or information, contact Joe Edgeller with Williams at (918) 573-9917, joe.edgeller@williams.com; or Beth Medlin with Boardwalk at (713) 479-8118, beth.medlin@bwpmlp.com.