-BP appointed David Lawler CEO of its Lower 48 onshore business, effective Sept. 15. Lawler most recently served as executive vice president and COO of Oklahoma-based independent oil and gas producer SandRidge Energy. Lawler also served as CEO and president of PostRock Energy Corp. BP announced in March it would separate its onshore continental U.S. business in 2015.
-Meanwhile, Reuters reports on the start of the refracking boom, in which companies such as Encana Corp., Marathon Oil and Exco Resources are increasing production from older wells by fracking them again. Exco boosted production from a refracked gas well by 1.3 million cubic feet per day in 2010 and Bakken wells refracked by Marathon have exceeded the company’s expectations. Engineers stress, however, that refracking does not work in every well.
-Global Partners on Tuesday received an air permit to unload 120,000 barrels of oil per day from rail cars at its Clatskanie, Ore., terminal for delivery to refineries. Tesoro, meanwhile, will be forced to wait until next spring at the earliest to get approval for a new 360,000-barrel-per-day terminal in Port of Vancouver, Wash. Bloomberg notes that Tesoro’s terminal, which would deliver Bakken crude to the West Coast, would be the biggest of its kind in the Pacific Northwest. It is one of several crude-by-rail proposals being held up due to safety concerns.
-Midstream firm AltaGas will build a 198-million-cubic-feet-per-day shallow-cut gas processing facility in the Montney Shale in western Canada. AltaGas entered an agreement by which E&P firm Painted Pony Petroleum will have the right to at least 150 million cubic feet per day of capacity. The facility is expected to cost between $325 million and $350 million.
-A 15-mile section of the Ohio River that was closed this week due to a 5,000-gallon fuel oil spill was reopened today. The spill occurred Tuesday during a routine fuel oil transfer at a Duke Energy power plant near Cincinnati.
Photo: BP p.l.c.
