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CERAWeek Panel: Why Oil & Gas Drillers Limit Growth to Single Digits

The CERAWeek conference was held in Houston, Texas all of last week. We’re still analyzing important news from the event. The CEOs of major drillers and midstream companies were there, as were heads of government agencies (like Jennifer Granholm, Biden’s incompetent Secretary of Energy). For example, we spotted a report from a session where the heads of three drillers, Pioneer Natural Resources, ConocoPhillips, and Chesapeake Energy, shared their insights on what lies ahead for 2022 and 2023. The panel provided insight into how and why growth (new drilling, more production) is being limited in U.S. shale plays, including in the Marcellus/Utica.
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Indian Giant RIL Looking to Dump its Marcellus Joint Ventures

The single largest company in India, and one of the largest energy companies in the world, is Reliance Industries Limited (RIL). As of July 2013, RIL had invested a massive $5.7 billion in three shale joint ventures–the bulk of that in the Marcellus Shale. The company was planning to double it’s shale investment to over $10 billion! But a funny thing happened on the way the Forum. Prices for oil and gas started to slump, and RIL’s return on their shale investments slumped with it. RIL invested $3.5 billion in a Marcellus joint venture with Atlas Energy in 2010 (see Joint Venture Between Reliance Industries and Atlas Energy Worth $3.5 Billion Over 10 Years). RIL later battled Chevron to buy Atlas–but Chevron won, so RIL became a jv partner with Chevron (see India’s RIL Loses Bidding War for Atlas Energy – $4.3 Billion Deal with Chevron Goes Forward). RIL currently has 3 jv’s, the Chevron jv in the Marcellus (owns 40% of that acreage), a jv with Carrizo Oil & Gas in the Marcellus (owns 60% of that acreage), and a jv with Pioneer Natural Resources in the Texas Eagle Ford (owns 45% of that acreage). Now comes word that RIL wants to exit all of their jv’s and wash their hands of U.S. shale, a 180 degree reversal from just a few years ago…
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India’s RIL Doubles US Shale Investment to $10.8B! Mostly Marcellus

The single largest company in India is Reliance Industries Limited (RIL). A few years ago, RIL invested in three U.S. shale joint ventures (see India’s RIL: Shale Gas a Major Contributor to Revenue by 2015 for background). RIL has invested $5.7 billion in the jv’s to date–a massive investment. Word has just come out that they plan to double that investment in the next three years–to a whopping $10.8 billion.

Two of the three jv’s, and most of the investment, will be in the Marcellus Shale. RIL says by the time the project is done, they will have drilled 3,846 shale wells in the US…
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