Flaky Shell in Love with Shale Again – “Heart of Growth Plans”

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flakyShell has long mystified us when it comes to shale. Shell has been involved in the Marcellus Shale for years with its SWEPI (Shell Western E&P) division--at one time with 900,000 acres under lease. But in 2014 Shell took an ax to its Marcellus drilling program (see Cuts Coming to Shell’s Marcellus Shale Operations). Then our heads started to spin. Shell sold 208,000 Marcellus acres to Rex Energy (see Rex Energy Takes Shell to the Cleaners – Picks up 208K Acres), and then they turned around and bought another 155,000 acres from Ultra Petroleum (see After Selling 208K Marcellus Acres, Shell “Buys” 155K More Acres!). In January of this year, Shell said they were exiting shale drilling following the merger with BG (see Shell to Cut 10,000 Jobs After Buying BG; Exiting Shale Drilling). In March, the company announced it was merger the conventional and unconventional (shale) divisions into a single division (see Shell Giving Up on Shale? Merges Unconventional with Conventional). Which brings us to a Reuters story from yesterday. Shell now says they are putting unconventional (i.e. shale) "at the heart of its growth plans." Can anyone say "flaky"?...

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