HEW-TEX INDUSTRY NEWS ROOM
The Oil And Gas Situation: Exxon Not Panicking, Permian De-Bottlenecking
Nothing on Earth Can Replace Helium — and It’s in Peril
Liquid helium has helped build billion-dollar industries and generate multiple Nobel Prizes. Now our supply is running low.
NYTIMES.com: By Dr. DiVerdi is a chemistry professor. – Sept. 4, 2019
Liquid helium is a quiet engine of American research and business. It is essential to a broad range of technologies, from cutting-edge quantum computing to M.R.I. scanners in hospitals. It has fostered the development of billion-dollar industries, fueled essential lifesaving medical tools, supported work leading to more than 5,000 patents and helped generate multiple Nobel Prizes. In short, it is crucial to innovation. Read more…
Concho sells Permian assets to Houston’s Spur Energy for $925M
Midland’s Concho Resources said Tuesday it will sell its more mature Permian Basin assets in New Mexico for $925 million to the Houston startup Spur Energy Partners.
Concho, which has struggled financially of late, will use the funds to cut down on debt and initiate a share buyback program to help appease Wall Street, while Spur Energy will keep building its foothold in the Permian’s northwestern shelf, which is outside of the booming Delaware Basin in New Mexico.
Concho said it’s starting a share repurchase effort of up to $1.5 billion to help boost the company’s stock. The sale includes about 100,000 gross acres producing 25,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day. Concho will keep its large presence in the Delaware Basin in New Mexico. Read more…
A Well-Kept Secret: The US Has Become an ‘Energy Superpower’
PERMIAN BASIN, Texas – Many Americans don’t know that over the last few years the US has become an energy super-power and that much of the growth comes from a remote region in Texas that you’ve probably never heard of.
20 years ago, big oil was pulling out of the Permian Basin. Today it’s the reason the US is the top oil and gas producing country in the world.
Todd Staples, the president of the Texas Oil and Gas Association, is only too happy to talk about what’s happening here. Read more…
Drilling Down: Pioneer’s big bet on the Midland Basin
Irving oil company Pioneer Natural Resources is betting on its leases in the eastern end of Permian Basin.
Pioneer filed for eight drilling permits over the past week to develop horizontal wells on seven leases split between Midland and Upton counties.
Located in an area of the Permian known as the Midland Basin, the wells target the Spraberry formation down to depths of 10,531 feet.
During a recent investors call, Pioneer Natural Resources Chief Executive Scott Sheffield said the western end of the Permian, known as the Delaware Basin, is being drilled “too aggressively.” Read more…
Western Midstream names new leadership to “grow alongside Occidental” following acquisition
HOUSTON – Western Midstream Partners (WES) announced that Michael P. Ure has been named president & Chief Executive Officer and Craig W. Collins has been named senior vice president & Chief Operating Officer of WES. Mr. Ure previously served as Senior Vice President of Business Development for Occidental and Mr. Collins is returning to WES having previously served as senior vice president & Chief Operating Officer of its predecessor, Western Gas Partners, LP from 2017 to 2018. Mr. Ure and Mr. Collins are succeeding Robin H. Fielder and Gennifer F. Kelly, respectively, in connection with the recently completed acquisition of Anadarko by Occidental. Jaime R. Casas, senior vice president, chief financial officer & treasurer, and John D. Montanti, vice president, general counsel & corporate secretary, will remain in their current positions.
“Occidental sees great value and opportunity in the excellent WES asset base and is committed to value-enhancing opportunities for both companies,” said Vicki Hollub, president and CEO of Occidental. Read more…
New laws could pump billions of dollars into Permian Basin’s rapidly growing water recycling industry
Houston Chronicle – Business / Energy
Whether by pipeline tanker, truck or hose, more water is moving around the arid Permian Basin than crude oil at any given moment.
Water has become the lifeblood of the modern energy industry with hydraulic fracturing using high-pressured slurry of water, sand and chemicals to unlock oil and gas from shale formations in Texas and across the country. In the arid Permian Basin, the nation’s most productive oil field, drilling and fracking operations consume more than 195 million gallons of water per day in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico — enough water to fill nearly 300 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
All this has made water and water management in the Permian a big business that’s only expected to get bigger, following the recent enactment of three laws in Texas and New Mexico, the two states encompassing the sprawling oil basin. The laws, which essentially clarify water rights issues and encourage the reuse of water, could pump billions more dollars of investment into the region’s rapidly growing water recycling industry. Read more…
Permian Needs $9 Billion Worth of New Wells—But Not for Crude
As much as $9 billion will be needed over the next decade just to throw away dirty water in the world’s busiest shale field, according to Raymond James & Associates Inc.
The scale of the challenge is mind-boggling: drillers typically pump 30 Olympic-sized swimming pools of water into an oil well to fracture the surrounding rocks. In return, as much as 10 barrels come rushing back out for every one barrel of crude, Raymond James analyst Marshall Adkins said in a note to clients on Monday.
Given that recycling efforts aren’t robust enough to handle the 17.5 million barrels of dirty water produced DAILY in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, oil companies have to do something else with all that salty slurry, Adkins said. After all, so-called produced water is 10 times saltier than seawater and can be tainted with heavy metals and radioactivity.
“Most investors are simply unaware of the fact that as crude production grows, produced ‘dirty’ water grows even faster,” he wrote. “As the Permian Basin shifts further into manufacturing mode, the water growth we project will create the need for nearly 1,000 additional salt water disposal wells by 2030.” Read more…
Dirty water holds biggest promise, Jefferies says
WorldOil.com – By David Wethe on 6/24/2019
HOUSTON (Bloomberg) — For companies that haul oil and natural gas, the next big thing may be dirty water, according to Jefferies Group LLC.
As booming U.S. oil production unleashes a torrent of contaminated water that rises to the surface with crude, pipeline operators may be in the best position to harness those flows and expand into the water-handling business, said Peter Bowden, Jefferies’ global head of energy investment banking.
In the Permian basin alone, the combination of saltwater from wells and water used in the fracing process is expected to be three times larger than crude output by 2023, according to Jefferies. Pipeline owners already are adept at transporting oil and gas, so adding water to their portfolios may be a logical next step, Bowden said Friday at an Oilfield Water Connection conference in Houston.
“Water is going to offer them more growth than their core business,” he said. “There’s a case that the public midstream companies should be doing all three streams everywhere they can.”
There have been more than $2.5 billion of Permian-focused water deals so far this year, according to Gabe Collins, a fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute. Many of the transactions have involved private-equity firms, he said during the same conference.
Enterprise expanding oil exports and more along Houston Ship Channel
msn.com – Jordan Blum, Houston Chronicle
Houston’s Enterprise Productions Partners said it will greatly expand its Houston Ship Channel terminals to export more crude oil, propane, butane and petrochemicals
Enterprise said it is concentrating the expansion at its Houston Ship Channel terminal south of Channelview, including the construction of an eighth dock to increase its crude oil-exporting capacity by nearly 45 percent from Houston.
Enterprise also will greatly expand its liquefied petroleum gas export capacity – primarily butane and propane – and add new refrigeration storage capacity so it can ship out more propylene, which is the primary petrochemical building block of many plastics.
This is all part of an ongoing build out of Enterprise’s pipeline, storage, processing and exporting network that has rapidly expanded since the advent of the Texas shale boom. Enterprise has recently built massive crude oil and natural gas liquids pipelines stretching more than 500 miles from West Texas’ Permian Basin to the Houston area. Read more…
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