Shell 3rd Quarter ResultsSo far so good, no mention of any Canol asset sales but 2 more plays are hitting the auction block - Colorado (Niobrara) & Ohio (Utica). This follows a previous announcement on their pending sales in the Eagle Ford & Mississippi Lime.
Niobrara
A Shell spokeswoman confirmed that its assets in Routt and Moffat counties in northwestern Colorado,were on the market. And now, so are Shell’s operations on southeastern Colorado, where it’s drilled a well in Huerfano County, Shell spokeswoman Deb Sawyer told me. “We’ve drilled one well and fracked it, and we’ll continue with our program while the assets are marketed,” she said. In an emailed statement, Sawyer explained the company’s decision this way: “As part of ongoing activities to strengthen our onshore tight/shale oil and gas portfolio, Shell will market certain assets in the United States. This includes our exploration project in Southeast Colorado.
Utica
McClendon and his new privately held operator American Energy Partners (AEP) won the bidding for about 50,000 acres put on the market by Shell, which appears to be unloading most of its acreage in Ohio to concentrate its efforts on the Marcellus and the Utica in western Pennsylvania, where the Anglo-Dutch supermajor has looked at building an ethylene cracker to process production.
Sources who screened the Shell package, which included parcels in Jefferson, Guernsey, Harrison and Belmont counties, characterised the acreage as fragmented and trending toward the still unproven oil window of the play and said the supermajor was unwilling to piecemeal out the more prospective blocks.
Those sources suggested McClendon had reached an agreement to buy the entire package but had not closed the deal yet.