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 [...]
Ten years ago, Devon Energy made a multibillion-dollar bet on the Barnett Shale. On Aug. 14, 2001, the Oklahoma City-based oil and gas company announced a deal to acquire Mitchell Energy & Development of Houston for $3.5 billion. Mitchell Energy, led by legendary oilman George Mitchell, was the pioneering company that cracked the code of [...]
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 [...]
A team of researchers at The University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Institute recently announced they are going to conduct “a comprehensive review of the science, policy and environmental issues surrounding hydraulic fracturing of shale gas,” More specifically, the team will investigate claims of groundwater contamination, seismic events, fugitive air emissions and other concerns that [...]
If there’s a formula for success regarding the engineering aspects of unconventionals drilling, Encana Corporation looks well placed to know what that formula is. At Shale Gas Eastern Europe 2011 in Warsaw, Poland, Encana’s Mike Graham, Executive VP and President, Canadian division, offered insights from North America’s largest independent natural gas producer, whose head office [...]
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 [...]
Three years after the first successful well reached the 11,000-foot-deep Haynesville shale formation in northwest Louisiana, more than 1,060 wells using new horizontal drilling and “fracking” methods are producing natural gas at record levels. Their number could soon double. Another 930 wells are permitted and either awaiting drilling, being drilled or awaiting the complex hydraulic [...]
Blackpool residents are used to a mix of sand and water. For a British seaside town, it’s the natural economic fuel. Add in some chemicals, though, and you’ve got the ingredients of a drilling technique that is radically reshaping America’s energy market and may do so for the rest of the world. It’s also drawing [...]
The Haynesville Shale, a sedimentary rock formation spanning parts of northwest Louisiana, southwest Arkansas and northeast Texas, could contain the largest natural gas deposit in U.S. history. New technology has made extracting natural gas from the shale commercially viable in recent years and created wealth opportunities in some of the state’s more impoverished parishes. And [...]
Independent energy company Petrohawk Energy Corp (HK.N) sold its natural gas assets in Fayetteville shale, Arkansas, to Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) unit XTO Energy for $650 million, in a deal that analysts said undervalued the assets. Petrohawk shares were down 2 percent at $18.26 in midday trade on Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange, [...]
