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Oil field services company Baker Hughes posted a $1 billion loss during the fourth quarter of 2015, suffering from a global decline in active oil rigs and ongoing pricing pressure from its customers. The loss reflected $1.25 billion in impairment and restructuring charges related to the adjustment of the carrying value of its onshore pressure pumping business in North America and other assets. The Houston-based oil field services company, which is being acquired by its competitor Halliburton, reported a loss of $2.35 per share during the three-month period ending Dec. 31. That was a reversal from than the profit of...

Until Tuesday, Canada-based Trican Well Services was the tenth largest pressure pumping company in the US by frac horsepower. On Tuesday, the company announced a deal had been reached to sell their US frac fleet to Keane Group, a privately-held, U.S. based well completion services company. The deal marks Trican's exit from the US market. Under the agreement, Keane will acquire the majority of Trican’s U.S. assets, including equipment, key employees and its engineering capabilities. The deal has been expected, and we previously reported that it was coming, but the price had not been known until today's announcement. The total...

President Barack Obama is poised to repeat his history of weak-handed negotiations on the world stage when nearly 200 countries gather in Paris on Monday to consider an international response to climate change. According to the president, rejecting the Keystone XL oil pipeline and piling regulations on the fossil fuel and power industries in the United States are necessary to preserving America's credibility as a leader on the world stage. But by doing this, Obama ignores the strongest card in America's hand as he steps to the table: the advances our energy sector has made to reduce carbon emissions while...

On September 30, a federal judge struck down the U.S. Department of Interior’s regulations on hydraulic fracturing, a blow to the Obama administration’s efforts at putting standards on the drilling practice. A U.S. District Judge in Wyoming issued an injunction against the implementation of Interior’s rules. In March 2015, the Bureau of Land Management (part of the Interior Department) issued its final rule for fracking on public lands. According to BLM, there are over 100,000 oil and gas wells on federal lands, over 90 percent of which use fracking. “Current federal well-drilling regulations are more than 30 years old and...

Denmark's first potential fracing project has been cancelled, as France's Total said it is pulling out of its shale gas exploration project in northern Denmark after failing to discover adequate deposits. Insufficient Deposits The Danish Energy Ministry said late Monday that the French supermajor's shale gas exploration in the Vendsyssel district in northern Jutland has been permanently shutdown. Total said it did not encounter sufficient shale gas deposits to render its efforts worthwhile, hence shutting down what would have been Denmark's first fracing project ever. The Energy Agency said in a press release, "The drilling results have not fulfilled the...

Shale oil producers from West Texas and North Dakota have harvested enough crude to overwhelm the global oil market and force Saudi Arabia's oil cartel to play offense on the world's energy stage. But U.S. producers have recovered only a small fraction of the oil that's trapped in those rocks, and though the oil-market crash has put the nation's energy boom on hold, some oil-technology companies are pursuing what they say will be a second American shale revolution. That belief lies partially in re-fracking - giving oil shale deposits a second blast of water, chemicals and sand - to get...

Much of the reporting on fracking is a confused mess, which must leave many people wondering exactly what's going on. One day there's a news story or newly released study implying that fracking is causing earthquakes or groundwater contamination; the next day there's a different study or story asserting there is no clear connection. No wonder last March the Gallup Polling Co. found that an equal number, 40%, supported and opposed fracking. One problem is that people, and especially reporters, frequently confuse fracking with wastewater injection. Hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," has been around for decades. It's a process whereby water,...

<p>New York has formalized its ban on high-volume hydraulic fracturing for natural gas after a seven-year environmental and health review.</p> <p>Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens announced the decision Monday, saying a ban was the "only reasonable alternative" after "years of exhaustive research and examination of the science and facts."</p>

“Made in the U.S.A” is becoming more affordable. The reason? Fracking. You don’t need to a Nobel Prize in economics to know that the fracking revolution has been good for the U.S. What’s not so well known is just how competitive cheap oil and gas has made American manufacturing. BCG, the Boston consultancy, estimates the average cost to manufacture goods in the U.S. is now only 5% higher than in China and is actually 10% to 20% lower than in major European economies. Even more striking: BCG projects that by 2018 it will be 2% to 3% cheaper to make...

There will be no US-style shale gas revolution in Europe, the president of the International Gas Union (IGU) has told the BBC."You cannot duplicate [the US experience] in Europe," said Jerome Ferrier. "Politicians are hesitating to accept shale development." Abundant shale gas in the US has helped domestic energy prices fall. As a result some European governments, not least the UK, are keen to develop their own shale resources. Mr Ferrier's comments come a day after a number of major energy firms called for a working price of carbon. Carbon pricing The IGU president, talking to the BBC at the...

An unusual schism has opened up on California’s politically dominant left flank, where Gov. Jerry Brown, a longtime favorite of the state’s environmentalists, has refused to give in to the climate change movement’s demand for a statewide ban on hydraulic fracturing. His stance comes despite the growing clamor in the aftermath of fellow Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s decision in December to allow a similar statewide ban of the revolutionary oil and gas drilling technique in New York. Hollywood stars and environmental activists badly want California to be next. The irony, of course, is that there may be no greener governor...

...carbonite-formations, and no region has as much oil and gas trapped in carbonate-formations as the Middle East. Carbonates are areas of sedimentary rock-Limestone, for instance—that contain many natural cracks inside them. Carbonite-formations are estimated to hold 60 percent of the world's oil and 40 percent of the world's gas reserves. In the Middle East, roughly 70 percent of oil and 90 percent of gas reserves are trapped in the carbonite, according to oil services giant Schlumberger.... ...Saudia Arabia is fifth in the world when it comes to recoverable gas reserves. Much of that is in carbonate-formation. What Saudia Arabia doesn't...

Adapting the technology that powered the shale oil boom in Texas to the deserts of Saudi Arabia and elsewhere could produce 141 billion barrels of crude, research firm IHS said Thursday. Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, alongside other technological breakthroughs in recent years, could pump that much oil out of 170 older, largely unproductive fields around the world, from the Middle East to Latin America to Russia. In its initial assessment, IHS found 96 percent of the oil that could be recovered from those fields would have to be released using hydraulic fracturing, a process of blasting water, sand and...

Full Title Dow Chemical at OTC: New technology is helping oil companies recycle all of that fracking waste water HOUSTON — Facing environmental pressures and escalating costs, more oil companies are recycling and reusing the vast amounts of water used during hydraulic fracturing operations rather than hauling the liquid off to get injected underground. New technological advances have allowed oil companies to more easily convert drilling waste water to get reused in the oil patch, said Larry Ryan, president of Dow Chemical’s energy and water solutions business in an interview with Fuel Fix at the company’s booth at the Offshore...

HOUSTON – High-horsepower pumps and big hydraulic fracturing trucks, the primary tools used to bust open U.S. shale rock, have carved out parking spaces of their own at the Offshore Technology Conference. They’re an attraction for foreign onlookers interested in the technology that brought a rush of American oil to market. But more and more, they’re a jumping off point for oil producers looking to break open hard sandstone reservoirs found in deeper offshore fields, like at Chevron’s Jack/St. Malo project in the Gulf of Mexico. Offshore producers have fractured conventional wells for decades, but advances in the landlocked U.S....

Local governments wouldn’t be able to ban fracking under a bill the Florida House passed. The House voted 82-34 for the bill Monday. It calls for a study of hydraulic fracturing and regulation of the drilling practice. Democrats opposed the bill, saying fracking should be banned in Florida because of the potential to contaminate groundwater.

U.S. crude oil production fell at least 135,000 barrels of oil per day in January 2015 compared to December 2014 according to the EIA (Figure 1). Bakken Shale production fell the most of any play or jurisdiction losing 37,000 barrels per day in North Dakota and 4,000 barrels per day in Montana for a total of 41,000 barrels of oil per day (Figure 2). Production in California, the offshore Gulf of Mexico, Alaska and Wyoming also declined significantly. Figure 3 shows Bakken production based on DrillingInfo data. The 42,000 barrels of oil per day drop in January production is completely...

CERAWEEK-U.S. fracking costs falling fast, may keep fields in play HOUSTON, April 22     (Reuters) - U.S. oil and natural gas companies have pushed down costs of fracking a shale well faster than expected, and if the trend holds up it could allow producers to keep working in oilfields that just months ago looked uncompetitive after the oil price crash.A more than 50 percent fall in the price of crude oil since June has left oil and gas producers insisting on steep price cuts from oilfield service companies that provide everything from drilling rigs to hydraulic fracturing.Oil is trading...

A bill being debated in the Texas Legislature that would severely limit local municipalities' power to regulate oil and natural gas drilling moved one step closer to becoming law Monday. In a 125-20 vote, the Republican-dominated Texas House of Representatives approved on third reading H.B. 40. The legislation would "expressly pre-empt local ordinances that ban or limit oil and gas operations," including hydraulic fracturing. The bill will now move to the state Senate, which, like the House, is Republican-controlled. If passed by both houses of the legislature it will move to the desk of Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who has...

Oil producer EOG Resources Inc has the lion’s share of an estimated 900 North Dakota wells waiting to be fracked, according to state data, showing that even major oil titans are mothballing operations while they hope for a rebound in oil prices. For months the conventional wisdom in North Dakota’s Bakken shale formation had been that smaller producers with weak cash flow comprised the bulk of that estimate. While the estimate had been published monthly, it was not clear until a Tuesday update from the state’s Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) who was dominating the list. Oilfield service companies have...