“Hydraulic fracturing of shale formations to extract natural gas has no direct connection to reports of groundwater contamination [...] many problems ascribed to hydraulic fracturing are related to processes common to all oil and gas drilling operations, such as casing failures or poor cement jobs.” Quoted from the University of Texas at Austin press release.
More at University of Texas at Austin.
Sinopec, a major Chinese oil and gas company also known as China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation Limited, will purchase a 1/3 share of Devon Energy’s holdings in five shale plays in the United States for $900 million in cash and contribute $1.6 billion towards future drilling expenses. Properties in the Utica Shale, Tuscaloosa Marine Shale, Niobrara Shale are included.
More at Business Week.
Many property owners are very surprised when the royalties that they receive from a natural gas well on their property decline sharply. They are learning about production decline curves.
More at Geology.com.
An article in the New York Times reviews some potential rewards and problems that occur when a landowner decides to lease his property for oil and and gas development.
Related: Mineral Rights [1]
[1] http://geology.com/articles/mineral-rights.shtml
More at New York Times.
Anadarko Petroleum estimates that the Niobrara Formation in the Wattenberg Field contains the equivalent of 500 million to 1.5 billion barrels of oil that can be tapped by horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. (See slides 11-15 in the .pdf doc…
More at Anadarko.
Thousands of high-paying new jobs are unfilled in North Dakota where natural gas and oil are being produced from the Bakken Formation, the Niobrara Shale and other rock units.
More at MSNBC.
Is natural gas part of the shale or is it a fugitive commodity that is not an integral part of any specific rock unit? Will a refined legal definition of natural gas in Pennsylvania overturn thousands of historic leases?
More at Business Week.
An article in the Casper Star-Tribune reports that companies interested in the Niobrara Shale of Wyoming and Colorado are using seismic surveys to understand the stratigraphy.
More at Casper Star-Tribune.
In most of the shale plays a newly-drilled well has a reasonable probability of producing the same mix of natural gas, oil and natural gas liquids produced by existing wells that region. However, wells drilled into the Niobrara of southeastern Wyoming are often dry – a problem that has drillers learning more about the geology or moving their activity to more predictable locations.
More at Trib.com.
Natural gas was the initial target of horizontal drilling in the shale plays, however, natural gas liquids, condensates and oil are now attracting most of the attention. An article in Investing Daily calls natural gas the “incidental” product.
More at Investing Daily.
Entek Energy Ltd., an Australian company is drilling vertical wells into the 1100-foot-thick Niobrara Shale in southern Wyoming. More in the Casper Star-Tribune.
The Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University has published a report titled: “Shale Gas and U.S. National Security”. “This study assesses the impact of U.S. domestic shale gas development on energy security and U.S. national security, with emphasis on the geopolitical consequences of rising supplies of U.S. natural gas from shale and the implications for U.S. foreign policy.” Quoted from the report summary.
A post on the Seeking Alpha blog details how successful Chesapeake Energy has been at rapidly leasing enormous acreages in all of the major natural gas shale plays in the United States. They author calls them a “land acquisition machine”.
Some companies are starting to doubt the initially optimistic opinions about the Niobrara Shale that has produced oil and natural gas in the Colorado, Western Nebraska and Wyoming area. Some recent wells have not been commercially viable and that has generated uncertainty. More at GulfNews.com.
Mark Northam, director of the School of Energy Resources at the University of Wyoming says that horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing allow drillers to “manufacture a reservoir” in the Niobrara Shale. More in the Billings Gazette.
An article in the Billings Gazette explains how horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing are opening a bonanza of oil and natural gas from the Niobrara Shale in Colorado, Kansas and Wyoming.
An unusual entry into the Niobrara Shale is CNOOC Ltd., China’s largest offshore energy company. They are buying 1/3 of Chesapeake Energy’s Niobrara Shale assets for $570 million cash. More at Bloomberg.com.
An article on the Platte County Reord-Times websites explains the consequences faced by a “hold-out” landowner when forced pooling is instituted on a Niobrara Shale property.
Companies competing for select properties over the Niobrara Shale play in eastern Wyoming spent a record amount of money at a recent state lease sale held by the Wyoming Office of State Lands. More in BusinessWeek.com.
Economic development groups in southeastern Wyoming are advising business owners to prepare for an oil boom as leasing and production begin for the Niobrara Shale oil deposits. More in the Wyoming Business Report.
An article on the CNBC website reports that companies are working hard to get Niobrara Shale acres under lease in parts of Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska. They believe that horizontal drilling in the Niobrara will yield a bonanza of oil similar to the Bakken Shale of North Dakota.
At a public hearing of the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, Wyoming Governor, Dave Freudenthal questioned Halliburton attorney, Thomas Jackson about the composition of hydraulic fracturing fluids. More in the Washington Post.
Shale has been hot in the news over the past few years because of the numerous natural gas plays in the United States and other countries. An article on the Reuters website speculates that oil from shale will be the next big wave in the news with the Niobrara Shale of Colorado, the Bakken Shale of North Dakota and the Eagle Ford Shale of Texas making the initial headlines.
