Additional contracts have been awarded to nine companies in the U.S. Department of Energy’s sales of crude oil from the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve.  The latest contracts were awarded to Valero (11.65 million barrels), Marathon (8.51 million barrels), ExxonMobil (5.15 million barrels), Phillips 66 (1.3 million barrels), Chevron (900,000 barrels), Shell (700,000 barrels) and others.  […]

New drilling activity is returning to Permian Basin.  Baker Hughes’ count of active oil and gas drilling rigs in New Mexico reached at least 100 in the June 10 report for the first time in 26 months (since April 2020).  There are 103 rigs in New Mexico – up 3 in the past week and […]

Dallas-based Matador Resources said last week it agreed to acquire a gas gathering and processing system in northern Delaware Basin from Summit Midstream Partners for $75 million.  The Lane gathering and processing system, located in Eddy and Lea counties in New Mexico, includes a cryogenic processing plant (60 million cfd capacity), three compressor stations and […]

Houston-based Western Midstream Partners said last month it sanctioned a new cryogenic processing unit (300 million cfd capacity) at its Mentone plant in Delaware Basin (Mentone Train III).  Estimated in-service date is 2023Q4.  Craig Collins, senior vice president and COO, said, “We continue to attract incremental volumes from Occidental and third parties due to our […]

Desert Peak Minerals and Falcon Minerals said last week they completed their $1.42 billion combination to create Sitio Royalties.  Sitio will focus on large-scale consolidation of high-quality mineral and royalty interests across diversified exploration and production operators.  The transaction completed June 7 combined Desert Peak’s large Delaware Basin portfolio, backed by Kimmeridge Energy Management, with […]

U.S. Energy Information Administration said last week that marketed natural gas production from Permian Basin reached a new annual high of 16.7 billion cubic feet per day in 2021.  Permian Basin trails only Appalachian Basin (Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia), which produced 34.8 billion cfd of marketed natural gas in 2021.  EIA said in its […]

Oil and gas operators in Permian Basin and elsewhere continued their pause in new drilling activity, according to the Baker Hughes report for June 3.  There were 342 rigs in Permian Basin (unchanged in past week, up 110 in past year), 357 in Texas (down 1 in past week, up 141 in past year), 98 […]

Texas added about 3,160 oilfield services jobs in May to grow the industry’s workforce in the state to 306,411, according to an analysis of preliminary data by Energy Workforce and Technology Council.  The council said the U.S. added about 4,775 jobs in May to grow the nation’s total to 628,793 in the industry.

Texas comptroller Glenn Hegar said this week the state received a record $666 million in oil production taxes in April and another $595 million in May.  In addition to being the highest monthly total in the state’s history, the April revenue was 99 percent higher than April 2021.  Natural gas production taxes were $339 million […]