Shale Daily

Federal and state officials concede there was a “miscommunication” between them over plans by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to put more than 4,000 acres of a state forest in Ohio up for oil and gas leasing, and the sale has been put on hold.

Boosted by its growing U.S. onshore business, Anadarko Petroleum Corp. reversed year-ago losses in the second quarter and reported production gains in most of its domestic plays.

With the proceeds counted from the sale of its Permian Basin acreage earlier this year, Frisco, TX-based Comstock Resources Inc. is squarely focused on the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas, where it is drilling longer-lateral wells for less money in fewer days and looking for bolt-on acreage acquisitions. The Haynesville Shale will have to wait.

New pipeline and compressor infrastructure has helped boost dry gas production in West Virginia and neighboring southern Pennsylvania counties since early 2012, with more growth still expected to come in the region despite strategic shifts by oil and gas companies to more liquids-rich targets, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said Tuesday.

EnerJex Resources Inc. has agreed to acquire privately held Black Raven Energy Inc., a Denver-based company with more than 75,000 net acres leased in the Denver-Julesburg (DJ) Basin.

Backlog for capital equipment orders in National Oilwell Varco’s (NOV) rig technology segment was $13.95 billion at the end of 2Q2013, a record high, 8% higher than at the end of 1Q2013 and 24% higher than at the end of 2Q2012, the company said Tuesday.

A bankruptcy court in New York has approved plans by Norse Energy Corp. USA to sell its assets, especially oil and gas leases for about 130,000 net acres in the state’s portion of the Marcellus and Utica shales.

Without dramatic intervention North Dakota’s natural gas flaring — already costing about $100 million/month — is going to get worse even if the percentage of total production flared goes down, as state and industry officials predict, according to a report released Monday by Boston-based social responsibility nonprofit organization Ceres.

The Texas Petro Index (TPI), an indicator of upstream oil and gas activity in Texas, increased modestly but steadily during the first half of the year, beginning July a scant 1.2% from matching the peak index achieved nearly five years ago, according to data released Monday. As has been the case for a while, oil production is the big story, but casinghead gas is lending support to natural gas output.