Shale Daily

The natural gas market is in “good shape” as it heads into the 2010-2011 winter heating season due to the influx of shale gas, which has reshaped the industry, and the addition of new pipeline capacity to access the lower-priced supplies, said a FERC analyst Thursday.

Shale play activity has come on like gangbusters in recent years, greatly augmenting the overall supply picture. Some producers appear dubious about how sustainable even the highly competitive economics of shale drilling are during a period in which gas prices universally have slipped below $4 into the pipe, but many keep shifting rigs into their shale acreage anyway.

Marcellus Shale gas already is displacing pipeline flows from the west, an energy analyst said Tuesday at the Argus Marcellus Shale Gas Summit 2010 in Houston.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell on Thursday said the promised natural gas severance tax for Marcellus Shale production “clearly is dead,” blaming the General Assembly’s GOP members for refusing to “negotiate in good faith.”

North American operators are continuing to shift from conventional natural gas plays “to oil and shales, particularly the gas and condensate plays,” which puts Weatherford International Ltd. in a particularly strong position, CEO Bernard Duroc-Danner said Tuesday.

With less than two weeks remaining until an election that could shift the balance of power in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and the state’s General Assembly remain deadlocked over a proposed natural gas severance tax.

The Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC) and the Ground Water Protection Council (GWPC) have launched an effort to disseminate information on chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) Chairman Victor G. Carrillo announced.

Companies that missed out on the first round of leasing in the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas that began in 2008 will have another chance as some of those leases will be expiring in the coming months, an industry analyst said recently.

Using the experience it gained in the unconventional gas fields of the Piceance Basin in Colorado, and the Montney and Horn River shale plays in British Columbia, Encana Corp. has begun to advance its “gas factory” approach in the Haynesville Shale, where it holds more than 430,000 net acres spread across Louisiana and East Texas.