U.S. count of active drilling rigs continues down for the year while counts in Permian Basin, Texas and New Mexico increased in the weekly report of Jan. 27 from Baker Hughes. There were 357 rigs in Permian Basin (up 3 in past week), 380 in Texas (unchanged), 105 in New Mexico (up 3) and 771 […]

Initial roster of the Texas House Water Caucus includes nine members of the House of Representatives from west Texas. Sarah Schlessinger, CEO of Texas Water Foundation, said Jan. 13 the group will focus on creating a sustainable water system in Texas. She said aging infrastructure and limited investments have left Texas’ water infrastructure fragile. Last […]

Houston-based Kinder Morgan said Jan. 18 that land acquisition and procurement of materials and construction contractors continue as planned for expansion of Permian Highway natural gas pipeline. Target in-service date is Nov. 1 for the pipeline that will increase natural gas delivery from Permian Basin to Gulf Coast. The project will expand Permian Highway’s capacity […]

Midland-based Permian Resources Corp. said Jan. 17 it recently made several portfolio management transactions, including acquisition of 4,000 net leasehold acres, 3,300 net royalty acres and 1,100 boed (73 percent oil) of net production primarily in Lea County, N.M., from an undisclosed seller for $98 million. James Walter, co-CEO, said, “The combined transactions high-grade our […]

Irving-based ExxonMobil said this week its operated assets achieved zero routine flaring in Permian Basin in 2022Q4. Exxon also said it remains on track to meet its goal of zero routine flaring across all its global upstream operated assets by 2030 to support the World Bank’s zero routine flaring initiative. Exxon reduced methane emissions intensity […]

VTX Energy Partners, U.S. upstream unit of global energy company Vitol, Inc., said Jan. 19 it will acquire Midland’s Delaware Basin Resources and its associated surface and water businesses. The deal is VTX’s first acquisition since the partnership was established by Vitol and VTX last year. Assets to be acquired include 35,000 net leasehold acres […]

Texas Workforce Commission said last week that upstream oil and gas employment increased by 1,300 jobs in Texas in December and by 36,100 for the year 2022 to 211,200.  Todd Staples, president of Texas Oil and Gas Association, said, “It is encouraging to see upstream employment end the year on a positive note, particularly as […]

Texas’ oil and natural gas industry paid a record $24.7 billion in state and local taxes and state royalties in fiscal year 2022, according to annual economic impact report released Monday in Austin by Texas Oil and Gas Association.  Todd Staples, association president, said the total “shattered” the previous record of $16 billion in 2019 […]

Texas was only major producing state to add drilling rigs last week (up 1 to 380), according to weekly report of Jan. 20 by Baker Hughes.  Also, there were 354 rigs in Permian Basin (down 2 in past week), 102 in New Mexico (down 1 in past week) and 771 in U.S. (down 4 in […]

Forecast of oil production in Permian Basin by U.S. Energy Information Administration continues to grow.  EIA said Jan. 17 that production in Permian is expected to increase by 30,000 b/d in February to 5.635 million b/d from 5.605 million b/d in January.  In 7 major producing regions, production is expected to grow to 9.375 million […]