Shale Daily

EV Energy Partners LP (EVEP) and partnerships managed by EnerVest Ltd. have agreed to acquire Barnett Shale natural gas properties from Carrizo Oil and Gas Inc.

The drilling rights to an estimated 13,000 acres in New York’s Southern Tier will be released and litigation dropped as part of a major settlement reached Monday by Chesapeake Energy Corp. and about 200 landowners.

Responding in part to the derailment and explosion of a crude-laden tanker in Quebec in July, the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has proposed a rule aimed at improving the safety of the rail transportation of hazardous materials by tanker cars, as well as the rail transportation of shale oil.

A unit of Chesapeake Energy Corp. has won a victory in the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit about its rights to drill natural gas wells and use open waste pits on private property because the operator had all of the needed permits in place from West Virginia regulators.

Produced water from oil and natural gas drilling sites that is treated at wastewater plants appears to create elevated levels of some of the “most toxic” chemicals, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

A SaskEnergy subsidiary and Calgary-based Mistral Midstream Inc. have formed a joint venture (JV) to build a facility in southeast Saskatchewan to extract ethane and other hydrocarbons from natural gas from the Bakken formation being transported on the SaskEnergy system.

Arroyo Midstream Partners LLC, a unit ofCanyon Midstream Partners LLC, andGoodrich Petroleum Co. LLChave struck an agreement for acreage in Louisiana and Mississippi that is prospective for the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS). Arroyo is currently providing Goodrich with wellhead gas processing services at two recently completed wells in southwestern Mississippi and expects to add gas processing facilities to process gas volumes from an additional two wells by the end of 2013. Goodrich recently said it is stepping up its activity in the TMS (seeShale Daily,Aug. 8). The wellhead processing approach allows Canyon, through Arroyo, to participate in the delineation phase of exploration and production projects and share formation risk with its partner. Arroyo is a joint venture of Canyon andGas Processors Inc.”The partnership of Canyon and GPI is a unique combination of engineering, operational and local expertise to provide producers with the midstream services required for the development of acreage in the TMS,” said Canyon President Michael Walsh.

A nonpartisan policy research group in Pennsylvania is doubling down on its assertion that the state would be better served by a severance tax on oil and gas, adding that Pennsylvania is getting “shortchanged” by the impact fee under Act 13, the state’s omnibus Marcellus Shale law.

University of Michigan (U-M) researchers on Thursday issued seven technical reports that together form what they said is the most comprehensive state-focused resource on drilling, and in particular, unconventional drilling using hydraulic fracturing (fracking).