In most U.S. shale oil regions, energy firms are making strategic but cautious bets as the price of oil holds above $50 a barrel. In the Permian Basin of West Texas, the largest U.S. oil patch, the industry poured more than $28 billion into land acquisitions last year – more than triple what they spent…
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Average households in U.S. shale oil and gas drilling hot spots have experienced property value, income and other benefits that outweigh the costs of a diminished quality of life brought on by the industrial activity, economists reported in a recent study for the Social Science Research Network (SSRN). The benefits were not uniform across shale drilling regions, some…
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U.S. pipeline capacity for natural gas exports to Mexico has rapidly expanded in the past few years and currently stands at 7.3 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d). This existing cross-border capacity primarily supplies the Northeast and Central regions of Mexico. New capacity projected to be completed in the next several years will help to supply…
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A huge field of shale rock in West Texas could yield 20 billion barrels of oil, making it the largest source of shale oil the U.S. Geological Survey has ever assessed, agency officials said. The Wolfcamp Shale geologic formation in the Midland area also contains an estimated 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and…
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Houston-based Apache Corp. said it made a significant discovery in a Texas shale formation that holds enough crude oil to supply every refinery on the U.S. Gulf Coast for a year. The Alpine High discovery in West Texas contains an estimated 3 billion barrels of oil and 75 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, Apache said in a…
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Across the US, no other oil field has been hit with bigger spending cuts than the Eagle Ford formation, according to a new report by oil industry analysts Wood Mackenzie. Investments in the 26-county Eagle Ford field that is spread across South Texas plummeted by two-thirds to an estimated $10 billion this year from just…
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Since the beginning of the U.S. fracking revolution, oil producers have struggled with a frustrating issue: after an initial burst, crude output from new shale wells falls much faster than from conventional wells. However, those well decline rates have been slowing across the U.S over the past few years, according to data analysis provided exclusively…
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Energy and mining giant BHP Billiton has started tapping into its backlog of drilled oil wells in Texas and could profitably drill new wells if oil prices hold above $50 a barrel, Chief Executive Andrew Mackenzie said. The move to bring new production online is the latest sign that the recent rally in oil prices from…
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To understand why U.S. oil production is so resilient, it helps to consider the maze of pipelines running out of Midland, in west Texas. New lines have relieved a chokepoint in America’s biggest oil-producing area. A massive supply glut had forced producers to offer discounts of more than $20 a barrel below the U.S. benchmark…
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The process of hydraulic fracturing shales to extract oil and natural gas has lowered prices and displaced some coal with cleaner-burning natural gas in the US. However, some of the methane being extracting also escapes from oil and gas wells and heads straight to the atmosphere, where it is a potent greenhouse gas. That leakage…
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