Here are some interesting articles I have found: On Texas’ drought, from the PBS News Hour: http://www.texastribune.org/texas-environmental-news/environmental-problems-and-policies/coping-climate-change-texas-drought/ On Texas’ drought, from Texas Tribune: http://www.texastribune.org/texas-environmental-news/environmental-problems-and-policies/ “The Arithmentic of Shale Gas,” from Forbes’ Christopher Helman: http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2012/06/22/the-arithmetic-of-shale-gas/ In this article, Helman reviews a paper published by a group of Yale economis…
The fall of Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy, has been meteoric. He was forced to step down as Chairman of its board, and yesterday he was replaced as board chair by Archie Dunham, the 73-year-old former CEO of Conoco. Aubrey’s fall from grace started only a few months ago with…
The Pacific Institute has issued a study of issues related to hydraulic fracturing and water resources: Hydraulic Fracturing and Water Resources: Separating the Frack from the Fiction. The Pacific Institute is a non-profit research and policy organization based in Oakland, California. The study is largely a summary of interviews of environmental…
I have recently been asked to review requests for lease ratifications sent to my clients, and I thought that ratifications would be a good topic for this site. Companies generally ask owners of royalty and non-executive mineral interests to ratify oil and gas leases covering the lands in which they…
Rig count remains steady: Gas prices rise: Oil prices decline: The Haynesville Shale is now one of the largest gas fields in the nation. The Texas part of the field alone has produced almost 800 Tcf of gas since inception from some 800 wells. The biggest producers are…
One of the remarkable aspects of the oil and gas markets over the last few years has been the rapid decline of natural gas prices despite the continuing high price of crude oil. Historically, analysists have assumed that there is a relationship between the price of the two commodities. After all,…
A lot has been written lately about the amount of groundwater being used for hydraulic fracturing in shale plays – particularly in the Eagle Ford Shale, and more recently in the Permian Basin. This raises the question whether — and to what extent — exploration companies’ water wells used in…
Controversial EPA Administrator Al Armendariz has resigned his post as Administrator of Region 6, which includes Texas, after Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) called for an investigation of the EPA’s actions related to oil and gas exploration. Armendariz was previously a professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Prior to his…
Fortune Magazine’s April issue has three good articles on the resurgence of oil and gas exploration and production activity US onshore. The lead article, “Exxon’s Big Bet on Shale Gas,” provides a good summary of the growth and success of unconventional shale plays in the US in the last 8-10 years.…
In its 2009 Legislative Session, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 2259, whose stated purpose is to ensure that inactive oil and gas wells get plugged and that surface equipment associated with those wells gets removed. I provided a summary of the bill’s terms in a post on this site.…