Never mind that hydraulic fracturing was once again linked to an earthquake, this time a 4.0 tremor in Ohio on New Year’s Eve, the year 2012 kicked off in impressive fashion for the shale industry, which has been revolutionized by the controversial drilling practice. Undaunted by the environmental and geological challenges, two oil giants signed [...]
Nikkei business daily is reporting that Marubeni Corp will spend $1.3 billion on buying a 35 percent stake in a Texas-based shale oil and gas project from Hunt Oil Co. The Japanese trading house plans to raise output in the Eagle Ford shale to over 10,000 barrels per day in around five years, the report [...]
Marathon Oil plans $4.8 billion in capital spending for 2012, a 24 percent increase from its 2011 capital budget, the company said Wednesday. About one-third of the spending will target operations in the Eagle Ford Shale, the Houston-based company said. Marathon Oil plans to increase its presence in the South Texas shale play, increasing the number [...]
In a move directed at increasing its unconventional footprint, Norway’s Statoil is acquiring Texas-based oil company Brigham Exploration for $4.4bn. The deal will provide Statoil with unconventional or ‘tight’ oil production via Brigham’s 375,000 acre holding in the Bakken shale region in North Dakota. “Entering the Bakken and Three Forks tight-oil plays and taking on [...]
BHP Billiton is acquiring shale specialist Petrohawk Energy Corporation in an all-cash tender offer valued at approximately US$12.1 billion and a total enterprise value of approximately US$15.1 billion, including the assumption of net debt. BHP made its first big splash in the unconventional hydrocarbons with a deal to buy Chesapeake Energy’s Arkansas-based gas business for [...]
SM Energy Co. has entered an agreement with “undisclosed buyers” to divest a portion of its Eagle Ford Shale position. The position is a detached block of acreage that is comprised of the entirety of the company’s operated acreage in LaSalle County, Texas, as well as an immaterial portion of adjacent operated acreage in Dimmit [...]
GAIL (India) Ltd., the state-run gas utility, is reportedly making a non-binding bid for acquiring 20% interest in shale gas assets owned by a US company. The deal is estimated to be valued at $400-500 million, persons familiar with the negotiations said. The Times of India newspaper did not identifying the US company, but said [...]
Speaking on US shale gas development at Shale Gas Eastern Europe 2011 in Warsaw, Poland, Daniel G. Rathan, Director A&D at Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. remarked, “The growth in this sector of the industry is just incredible. The Barnett shale had production in the early 90s, but the explosion of production happened in 2006 [...]
Mexico’s Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) has reported its first production in February from a shale gas well. The state oil monopoly stated that the well is located in the town of Hidalgo, Coahuila in the northeast of the country. “Today, this well is in completion and production aligned through Hidalgo collection site 1, with an extraction [...]
ConocoPhillips plans to sell $5-$10 billion of non-core assets over the next two years. “We are executing the plan set out last year to improve returns and create value through disciplined capital spending, non-core asset sales and growing production per share,” said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Jim Mulva. Almost 90% of ConocoPhillips’ $13.5 billion [...]
