The Woodlands-based Earthstone Energy said April 1 it agreed to two deals to acquire privately held, operated assets in Midland Basin from Tracker Resource Development and an affiliate and also from affiliates of Sequel Energy Group. Aggregate purchase price is about $126.5 million. Assets include low-cost, stable, producing assets in complementary location to Earthstone operated […]

Dallas-based Pioneer Natural Resources said April 1 it agreed to purchase leasehold interests and related assets of Fort Worth-based DoublePoint Energy in a transaction valued at $6.4 billion, including $900 million of debt. Enverus said it’s the largest acquisition of a U.S. exploration and production private company since 2011 and one of the largest private […]

New Mexico reported record production of crude oil and natural gas last year, but the rate of year-to-year growth declined. The state’s Oil Conservation Division said New Mexico produced 367.8 million barrels of oil in 2020 – an increase of 10.8 percent from output of 331.8 million in 2019. The rate of increase from 2018 […]

Increasing crude oil prices continue to stimulate drilling activity. Houston-based Baker Hughes said as of March 26 Permian Basin added rigs for the ninth straight week. With an additional 5 rigs in the past week, Permian Basin has 221 rigs after starting 2021 with 175. There also are 205 rigs in Texas (202 previous week, […]

San Antonio-based NuStar Energy said March 3 it will develop 6,000 barrels of incremental pipeline capacity for additional refined products, including gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, into the Albuquerque region. NuStar will upgrade pump stations in a pipeline system it jointly owns with Phillips 66 Partners that transports refined products from Amarillo to Albuquerque. The […]

Calgary-based Freehold Royalties said March 4 it closed on two additional royalty transactions for $3.8 million to complement its positions in Permian Basin and Bakken. These assets are expected to add 75 boed to the company’s average 2021 production. The two acquisitions follow a U.S. royalty buy for $58 million that closed Jan. 5 weighted […]

Houston-based Apache Corp. said last month in its quarterly report that it plans to add a second drilling rig in Permian Basin by midyear in a return “to a very modest level of activity in the U.S.” John J. Christman IV, CEO, said Feb. 25 that Apache will boost upstream capital spending in 2021 by […]

A new Texas-based group is proposing a shift in responsibility for plugging and abandoning orphan wells to the nonprofit sector rather than government agencies. RigZone said earlier this month that the Texas Well Protected Energy Foundation is seeking 501c3 status with U.S. Internal Revenue Service to operate as a nonprofit organization focused on plugging and […]

Bloomberg reported this week that methane emissions from the Permian Basin have rebounded. Data came from the Permian methane analysis project of the Environmental Defense Fund. Emissions declined 60 percent in March and April 2020 as producers shut wells because of the pandemic and declining crude oil prices. “But methane emissions are now back at […]

Attorneys general from Texas and Montana are lead plaintiffs in a suit filed March 17 by 21 states in an attempt to overturn President Joe Biden’s decision to revoke the cross-border permit of TC Energy Corp.’s Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the U.S. The states argued Biden had no legal authority for his […]