Barnett Shale

Active rigs in the Barnett Shale rose to 37, up one from a week ago, according to RigData. Wise County continued to lead with 10 rigs, followed by Montague with seven, Tarrant with five and Denton with four.

Rigs in the North Texas field had hit their lowest level in years the week of Dec. 29, with just 30.

Nationally, Baker Hughes said the count climbed by four to 1,753. Rigs seeking natural gas rose by five to 434, and oil rigs slipped by one to 1,315. Read more »

When Fortune magazine released its latest Best Companies to Work For list, we again felt deflated with none of our stalwart local employers making it. We had to look over to Dallas to see, yet again, Container Store, which has made the cut 14 years in a row, and a company called TDIndustries.

Where was Pier 1 Imports, American Airlines or RadioShack? Read more »

Fort Worth-based Quicksilver Resources said it is in "confidential negotiations with a potential buyer" for a minority stake in most of its 140,000 acres in the Barnett Shale.

Spokesman David Erdman said the company will continue to operate the properties, in which it is the sole owner. That's everything except its Alliance-area holdings, where Italian oil giant Eni has a 27.5 percent stake, he said. Read more »

Devon Energy's $3.5 billion acquisition of Mitchell Energy in 2002 played a key role in the recent domestic oil and natural gas production boom, observers say. Mitchell developed several natural gas drilling techniques in the Barnett Shale formation in Texas, and Devon improved and expanded horizontal drilling throughout the play. The techniques were then applied by other firms across the country.

One East Texas county remains among the top 10 natural gas producing Texas counties despite increased production in North and far South Texas.

Panola County ranked No. 5 on the Texas Railroad Commission’s latest ranking of the state’s top gas producing counties. For August, the latest month that production volumes were available, natural gas producers with Panola County operations pumped 19.1 Mcf (thousand cubic feet) of gas. Read more »

More property owners are coming forward to local news outlets and whoever will listen saying they have yet to see their first royalty check from Barnett. Some say it's no accident, that exploration companies have over-drilled to the point that the Barnett Shale boom has gone bust.

With the advent of fracking and fifty years of potential reserves, natural gas was going to be gift that would keep giving for a lifetime. Yet some royalty owners, like Versie Brown of Fort Worth, have yet to see a dime. Read more »

The C.W. Slay No. 1, in Wise County, was drilled by Mitchell Energy, the company credited with solving the riddle of how to produce oil and natural gas from the dense shale a mile underground. But you'll have to look hard to find the Mitchell Energy name today among more than 18,000 Barnett Shale wells in some 23 counties.

In 2002, Mitchell was acquired by Devon Energy, now the field's biggest producer.

That illustrates two things about the Barnett: It's getting older, even downright mature as such fields go, and some of the old names are being replaced by new players. Read more »

- Santa Fe Petroleum, Inc.announced today, October 4, 2012  it has executed the joint operating agreement with it's affiliate operator, TexTron Southwest, Inc. The JOA is the definitive agreement for conducting well operations with a licensed operator in the State of Texas. Read more »

 Active U.S. drilling rigs fell by 17, on Monday August 20, 2012  to 1,914 as rigs seeking crude numbered 1,425, down seven from last week, which was the most since Baker Hughes separated oil and gas totals in 1987.

Rigs seeking natural gas fell by 11 to 484, the fewest since 1999.

There were five miscellaneous rigs.

The Barnett Shale had 48 active rigs, unchanged from a week ago. Wise County led with 10 rigs, followed by Jack with nine, Montague with seven and Tarrant with six.

Using newly available technology, a University of Texas seismologist tracking small earthquakes in the Barnett Shale play area of North Texas has found a correlation between geological disturbances and the sort of injection wells that are associated with hydraulic fracturing, according to research published Tuesday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Read more »