Shale Daily

Baker Hughes Inc. is reporting positive results from a program to convert a fleet of its North American hydraulic fracturing (fracking) units to bifuel pumps that use a mix of natural gas and diesel, the oilfield services operator said Monday.

Crestwood Marcellus Midstream LLC (CMM) is adding more bolt-on natural gas compression and dehydration assets in West Virginia’s Harrison and Doddridge counties that provide services to a unit of Antero Resources through a $95 million acquisition from Enerven Compression LLC.

Engineering company Curtiss-Wright Corp. said Monday it would pay $135.1 million in cash to acquire Cimarron Energy Inc. to gain entry into the U.S. shale oil and natural gas market.

A subsidiary of EmKey Energy LLC has acquired the rights to a 75-mile right-of-way (ROW) through three counties in New York’s Southern Tier, in the heart of the state’s portions of the Marcellus and Utica shales.

Enbridge Inc. unit Enbridge Rail (Philadelphia) LLC and Canopy Prospecting Inc. have formed the Eddystone Rail Co. to develop a unit-train facility and related pipeline infrastructure near Philadelphia, PA, to deliver Bakken and other light sweet crude oil to Philadelphia area refineries.

Southern Star Central Gas Pipeline Inc. is holding a binding open season through Dec. 7 for expansion capacity proposed to carry production from the Granite Wash, Cleveland/Tonkawa and Mississippian Lime areas to markets in Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri as well as other intrastate and interstate pipelines. The Straight Blackwell Expansion would involve expanding the capacity of Southern Star’s system beginning in Texas County, OK, along the Straight Blackwell Line (Line Segment 315) extending east to its Blackwell Compressor Station in Kay County, OK. Customer interest will dictate whether Southern Star pursues the expansion and will help define the final parameters of any project, the company said. Southern Star said if the project proceeds, it will, subject to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval, install the necessary facilities to serve all or a portion of the requested capacity. Expansion service could begin Oct. 1. For more information, contact Philip Rullman at (270) 852-4440, Jim Neukam at (270) 852-4665, Pat Coomes at (270) 852-4552, Robbie Clark at (270)-852-4577, or Dale Sanders at (270) 852-4666.

Magnum Hunter Resources Corp.’s Bakken Hunter LLC is buying existing wells and about 20,000 net Williston Basin lease acres in Divide County, ND, from Samson Resources Co. for $30 million in cash.

In two separate but related cases in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, a judge has ruled that energy companies can’t use the state’s de facto moratorium against high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) as an excuse to invoke force majeure to extend expiring oil and natural gas leases.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said Tuesday the number of drilling rigs active in the Utica Shale during the last week of October had more than doubled compared with the same week in 2011, with an increase in rigs targeting oil more than offsetting the loss of natural gas rigs.