Shale Daily

Rapid City, SD-based Black Hills Corp. closed a previously announced $243 million sale of approximately 85% of Bakken and Three Forks shale assets in the Williston Basin held by its Black Hills Exploration & Production Inc. (see Shale Daily, Aug. 27). The sale was effective July 1. CEO David Emery said the sale will allow the energy holding company to reduce its overall debt and fund growth projects. Black Hills also said it intends to redeem $225 million of senior unsecured 6.5% notes that were scheduled to mature May 15, 2013.

Just days after a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed last year by New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, the official hinted that he could file another lawsuit if natural gas drilling moves forward in the Delaware River Basin.

A key legislator in Pennsylvania said he plans to introduce a bill to create a nine-member Marcellus Shale Health Advisory Panel in the near future, a move suggested in the past by both Gov. Tom Corbett and the Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission (MSAC).

Tulsa, OK-based Unit Corp. said Friday its petroleum subsidiary has closed a previously announced sale of a little more than one-third of its interest in Bakken Shale properties to QEP Energy for $228 million. The deal was final as of July 1, 2012.

Dramatically increasing the production of domestic natural gas, oil and coal offers the United States its best opportunity to create sustainable jobs, but political wrangling stands in the way of achieving that goal, according to a new report from the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.

Seneca Resources Corp. is proceeding with drilling operations in the Marcellus and Utica shales, and has established positions in oil fields in Kansas and California, the National Fuel Gas Co. (NFG) subsidiary said Thursday.

Inflated by production from the nation’s burgeoning shale plays, total gross withdrawals of domestic natural gas jumped to 28.58 Tcf in 2011, a 6.5% increase from 26.84 Tcf in 2010, and are on pace to easily surpass those numbers again this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Monthly Energy Review for September.

The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) is considering three new setback zones for drilling based on the distance from a wellhead or production facility to the nearest occupied building.

Test well results and micro-seismic analysis have identified more than 200 drilling locations in the Mondak in the Upper Bakken Shale, according to initial drilling results released Thursday by Calgary, Alberta-based PetroShale.