Shale Daily

Same question, same answer. For the second time in six months, voters in Youngstown, OH, on Tuesday rejected, by about a 55-45% margin, an amendment to the city’s charter that would have banned hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and other activities that support shale development.

During the third quarter, Pioneer Natural Resources Co. turned in some landmark results in the Wolfcamp Shale as the company continued to de-risk the West Texas play.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp.’s infrastructure buildout in Colorado’s Wattenberg field was slowed by recent flooding, and about 250 wells remain shut-in, but the field’s output in the third quarter still more than doubled from a year ago, with U.S. onshore volumes breaking records.

Ultra Petroleum Corp., whose fortunes long have been linked to onshore natural gas, still is struggling a bit to recover from the “train wreck” that was 2012, and in the third quarter it got its mojo on track, with drilling efficiencies improving enough to allow the operator to reduce 2013 capital spending by $30 million, while still maintaining production forecasts.

Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is not the culprit in methane emissions, but other parts of the drilling process are, and they are fixable, according to a panel of industry, academic and environmental representatives.

Capacity to move growing production of condensate and natural gasoline out of the Marcellus/Utica Shale region to diluent markets in Canada is being offered by Unity Pipeline Co. LLC, which is proposing a system of new pipeline, as well as pipeline to be converted from natural gas service.

Phillips 66 is planning to expand its midstream business with a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) export terminal to be built at its existing marine terminal in Freeport, TX, the Houston-based company said.

George P. Mitchell and crew long have been credited with finding the trigger to unlock unconventional natural gas, but it was in fact a colorful cast of visionaries, oddballs and take-no-prisoner pitchmen who helped launch the United States on the road to energy independence, as told in the insightful, and at times suspenseful, new book by bestselling author Gregory Zuckerman, The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters.

Encana Corp., in stress mode since natural gas prices collapsed in 2009, will spend 75% of 2014 capital on only five North American onshore plays, all oily and liquids-rich, a strategy that within four years is designed to create a more evenly balanced operator.