Category: Shale Gas

US to launch blitz of gas exports thumbnail The United States is poised to flood world markets with once-unthinkable quantities of liquefied natural gas as soon as this year, profoundly changing the geo-politics of global energy and posing a major threat to Russian gas dominance in Europe. “We anticipate becoming big players, and I think we’ll have a big impact,” said the Ernest Moniz, the US Energy Secretary. “We’re going to influence the whole global LNG market.” Mr Moniz said four LNG export terminals are under construction and the first wave of shipments may begin before the end of this year or in early 2016 at the latest. “Certainly in this decade, there’s a good chance that we will be LNG exporters on the scale of Qatar, which is today’s largest LNG exporter,” he said, speaking on the margins of the IHS CERAWeek energy summit in Texas. Qatar exports […]

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Chesapeake Energy Corp. has agreed to pay $25 million to settle antitrust allegations made by Michigan’s attorney general, as well as complaints that it misled hundreds of landowners to obtain leases in the state. Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette filed criminal charges against the company last year . He accused Chesapeake of colluding with Encana Corp., another oil and gas producer, to keep the price of natural gas leases in the state artificially low. In a separate case, Mr. Schuette’s office also filed racketeering and false pretenses charges against Chesapeake, saying the company had defrauded lease owners. Chesapeake has previously called the cases meritless. On Friday a spokesman said the Oklahoma City-based company was happy to have settled the matter. “We are pleased to have reached a mutually acceptable agreement with the Michigan Attorney General and to move past these legacy issues inherited from past management,” said Gordon Pennoyer, […]

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Major improvements by natural gas exploration-and-production companies have allowed them to continue to drill profitably in a period of depressed prices, adding to the glut of gas and putting further pressure on prices, an E&P executive said Wednesday at the IHS CERAWeek conference in Houston. "What’s happening is that we continue to get better and get more production per rig," Kyle Mork, president of Energy Corporation of America, said in reference to the seeming paradox of growing US natural gas production despite a record low level of rigs. "We’re the problem," he said. It is common knowledge in the industry that the main reason why natural gas prices — both Henry Hub and prompt-month futures — are trading at levels not seen since 2012 is because of the phenomenal growth in US natural gas production led by the Marcellus Shale. Article continues below… Gas Daily offers the most detailed […]

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HOUSTON, Apr. 22 A seismology team in a study led by Southern Methodist University found high volumes of wastewater injection combined with brine extraction from natural gas wells was “the most likely” cause of earthquakes near Azle, Tex., during 2013-14. In an area where the seismology team identified two intersecting faults, they developed a 3D model to assess the changing fluid pressure within a rock formation in the affected area. They used the model to estimate stress changes induced in the area by two wastewater injection wells and more than 70 gas wells. “The model shows that a pressure differential develops along one of the faults as a combined result of high fluid injection rates to the west and high water removal rates to the east,” said Matthew Hornbach, SMU associate professor of geophysics. “When we ran the model over a 10-year period through a wide range of parameters, […]

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First, some background on U.S. natural gas sources and markets. Most of our country’s gas is consumed in the major population centers of the northeast, the so-called Washington-to-Boston corridor. It’s cold here in the winter and a number of homes use gas as a primary heat source. Gas is also used year-round to heat water, cook and dry clothes. Business and industry use gas to heat and cool buildings and it’s increasingly used for power generation. Starting around World War II and prior to the shale gas boom of the past eight years, most of the natural gas used in Pennsylvania came out of the ground in Oklahoma, Texas and under the Gulf of Mexico — yes, there are pipelines on the sea floor. (Fuel coming from outside Pennsylvania is referred to below as imported gas.) There is already major infrastructure in place to bring imported gas here. Large, […]

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ONOEK Partners announces plans to build pipeline to carry gas from the Permian shale basin in Texas to the Mexican market. UPI/Hamid Forotan/ISNA TULSA, Okla., April 2 (UPI) — A new 200-mile long pipeline will carry natural gas from a shale basin in Texas to an international connection at the Mexican border, ONEOK Partners announced. The company, which has headquarters in Oklahoma, said it formed a joint venture with Mexican gas transmission company Fermaca Infrastructure to build the Roadrunner pipeline that would transport gas from the Permian shale basin in Texas to the Mexican market. "We see Roadrunner as a gateway asset that will connect Mexico’s rapidly growing natural gas markets with U.S. producers in the developing Permian basin," ONEOK President and Chief Executive Officer Terry Spencer said in a statement. Roadrunner will extend 200 miles from ONEOK’s existing WesTex gas transmission system in Texas to an international connection […]

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There is an eye in the sky above U.S. shale oil and natural gas basins. Well, more like a nose. Through April, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration will be flying above the basins from North Dakota to Texas collecting air samples to document if drilling is adding to ground-level ozone, said Joost de Gouw , a research scientist at NOAA’s Earth Systems Research Lab in Boulder, Colorado. “We do that with a focus on air quality,” said de Gouw, also a senior scientist and fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “What are the reactive trace gases that are being released? How much methane is released from these activities?” Breathing ozone triggers a variety of health problems for children, the elderly and anyone with lung diseases such as asthma. It’s produced when sunlight mixes with nitrogen oxides and […]

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Chesapeake Energy Corp. on Monday slashed its 2015 capital budget by more than 10% and sharply lowered its production outlook, becoming the latest energy company to do so in response to lower oil prices. Separately, billionaire investor Carl Icahn said he has boosted his stake in Chesapeake Energy to nearly 11% from nearly 10%. Mr. Icahn now owns 73.1 million Chesapeake shares, financial filings show, but he isn’t the company’s largest investor. The No. 1 spot still belongs to Southeastern Asset Management Inc., which has 76 million share, or an 11.4% stake. Oil producers have announced plans to curb billions of dollars in capital spending this year, aimed in part at stabilizing the recent declines in energy prices. The Oklahoma City-based oil and natural gas driller reduced its spending plans to between $3.5 billion and $4 billion, down from a previous range of $4 billion to $4.5 billion. The […]

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US natural gas production could decline in 2016 for the first time in 10 years, driven by low oil prices after a decade of gangbusters growth from shale plays. March 17 (Reuters) – U.S. natural gas production could decline in 2016 for the first time in 10 years, driven by low oil prices after a decade of gangbusters growth from shale plays. While most analysts forecast gas production will continue growing year-over-year, albeit at a slower pace, a couple of outlier analysts believe low oil and gas prices will prompt drillers to cut spending enough to reduce gas production next year. Any talk of cutbacks is an early sign that low oil prices have slowed the U.S. shale gas boom that has revolutionized global markets and is expected to transform the nation into a net exporter of gas by the end of the decade. U.S. gas production has increased […]

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HOUSTON, Feb. 25 02/25/2015 Chesapeake Energy Corp. , Oklahoma City, is budgeting total capital expenditures, including capitalized interest, of $4-4.5 billion for 2015. Using the midpoint of the range, it represents a 26% reduction compared with the company’s 2014 capital expenditures before acquisitions of $5.8 billion, and a 37% reduction from the company’s 2014 total capital expenditures of $6.7 billion. Chesapeake for 2014 reported net income available to common stockholders of $1.273 billion. The primary component of this increase was unrealized gains on the company’s oil and natural gas commodity derivatives, partially offset by the redemption of all the outstanding preferred shares of a subsidiary. Adjusting for these items, full-year adjusted net income available to common stockholders was $957 million, compared with adjusted net income available to common stockholders of $965 million in 2013. Notably during the fourth quarter, the company received $5.1 billion of net proceeds from asset […]

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