Utica Shale

PDC Energy Inc. increased its capital expenditure budget (capex) for 2014 to $647 million as it prepares to target core acreage in Colorado’s Wattenberg field and Ohio’s Utica Shale in an effort to boost its liquids mix to 60%.

Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. will continue to push ahead in 2014 with plans to focus more sharply on its core assets in the Marcellus and Utica shale regions of West Virginia and Ohio, with plans to spend more than half of its capital budget in Appalachia next year.

Although brutally cold weather across much of the country is driving up natural gas delivery costs for utility companies, particularly those in the Northeast, increased production in the Marcellus and Utica shale formations has continued to push down the price customers are paying for the commodity this year as more utilities utilize local gas produced in the Appalachian Basin.

A group of Republicans in the Ohio House of Representatives have once again thrust the state’s oil and gas severance tax onto center stage by proposing a modest increase in the rate operators currently pay for production in the Utica Shale.

Ohio has reached a milestone of sorts, surpassing its 1,000th drilling permit last month in what sources say represents the oil and gas industry’s early satisfaction with the Utica Shale and highlights the continued push to develop the play.

Responding to shipper interest in a natural gas liquids (NGL) pipeline servicing the Marcellus and Utica shales, Sunoco Logistics Partners LP launched a binding open season for its Mariner East 2 project on Wednesday.

Marathon Petroleum Corp. (MPC) says it will focus strongly on its midstream and retail businesses to balance earnings from the company’s refining and marketing segment, as growing U.S. onshore oil and gas production has opened more opportunities for the nation’s fourth largest refiner.

MPLX, the master limited partnership formed by Marathon Petroleum Corp. (MPC) last year to operate and acquire midstream assets, has plans for a new 49-mile pipeline that will carry crude oil, condensates and natural gas from the Utica Shale in Southeast Ohio to MPC’s refinery in Canton, OH.

A Pennsylvania lawmaker has introduced a pair of bills designed to prevent the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) from using unmarked vehicles and video surveillance at oil and gas work sites.