Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners said last week its throughput volumes in first quarter were up compared to last year for each category except marine terminals.  Total fee-based natural gas processing volumes increased 12 percent or 760 million cfd to a record 7.2 billion cfd in the first quarter compared to 2024Q1.  Pipeline transportation volumes rose […]

U.S. energy secretary Chris Wright, speaking to a House energy subcommittee this week, vowed to fill the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve.  Wright testified Wednesday before the subcommittee on energy and water development of the Committee on Appropriations in the U.S. House of Representatives.  Wright said he issued a secretarial order “to refill the SPR, review […]

Counts of active drilling rigs in Texas and Permian Basin from Baker Hughes continue to fall.  Both are now at their lowest count in 41 months since December 2021.  As of May 2, there were 287 rigs in Permian Basin (down 2 from 289 last week, down 29 from 316 year ago) and 271 in […]

The Woodlands-based Ring Energy said recently it is reducing spending in 2025 second quarter by more than 50 percent to a midpoint of $18 million from a midpoint of $38 million in its original guidance for 2Q capital spending.  Ring said spending “was lowered in response to the recent decline in oil prices.” Despite the […]

Dallas-based Vaquero Midstream, natural gas gathering and processing midstream company operating in the Delaware Basin, said last week it will expand its existing gathering system in west Texas.  Vaquero will build a new 70-mile (24 inches) high-pressure pipeline loop and a 200 million cubic feet per day cryogenic processing plant.  It will increase Vaquero’s gathering […]

Travis D. Stice, chairman and CEO of Midland-based Diamondback Energy, said Monday in his announcement of reduced spending for 2025 that “it is likely that U.S. onshore oil production has peaked and will begin to decline this quarter.”  Diamondback is reducing its 2025 fullyear capital budget by about 10 percent to $3.4 billion to $3.8 […]

Atlas Energy Solutions received the Bruno Hanson Midland College Environmental Excellence Award recently for its 42-mile conveyor system that carries sand for hydraulic fracturing.  The award was announced last week at the Permian Basin environmental regulatory seminar.  The conveyor system, Dune Express, carries frac sand from Atlas’ Kermit facility to its loadout facility in Lea […]

Houston-based Phillips 66 said last week it will build a new gas processing plant near the company’s existing plant in Goldsmith in Ector County.  The new plant, Iron Mesa, about 15 miles northwest of Odessa, will have capacity of 300 million cfd.  Phillips 66 said April 25 that the location of the new plant will […]

After Public Utility Commission of Texas approved a plan for electric reliability in west Texas, AEP Texas said April 24 it will build one of three 765-kV transmission lines.  The Howard-Solstice transmission line is an integral part of the Permian Basin reliability plan. AEP will develop 300 miles of high voltage transmission line to link […]

Public Utility Commission of Texas approved a plan to build the first extra high voltage transmission lines in ERCOT to help meet the rapidly growing power needs in Permian Basin.  Commission chair Thomas Gleeson said, “Extra high voltage lines are more effective and strengthen reliability.  Because each line can carry more power, fewer lines are […]