Patrick Womack

The outlook for natural gas price realized by Chesapeake looks positive with the company's efforts in developing its major shale plays and using natural gas as alternative to power its rigs given the rising cost of fuel.

The term royalties is used interchangeable to mean either oil and gas mineral interests, royalty interests, or overriding royalty interests. These three interests are similar in that they all receive revenue from the production of oil and gas from a well. They do not pay for drilling or the monthly operating expenses of the well. There is a small difference between mineral interests and royalty interests.

Thousands of wells have been drilled across the state in just the past few years, though not all are in production. The boom has raised environmental concerns about the use of hydraulic fracturing, a drilling technique in which water, sand and a small amount of chemicals are used to open gas-bearing shale formations deep underground.

The Barnett Shale, one of the largest gas fields in the country, is slowly but surely being developed to provide an abundant supply of natural gas.

Oil prices retreated on Monday November 14, 2011 after a short rally as traders reacted to a changing political landscape in Italy and tensions in the Middle East.

United Country Bonnette Auction Company announces the auction 8,029 acres in Hackberry, La., on Thursday, December 15, 2011, at 1pm CST, according to Barbara Bonnette, auctioneer.

BHP Billiton Ltd. plans to invest roughly US$4.5 billion developing the shale oil and gas assets it bought in the U.S. this financial year as it ramps up production, the head of the mining company's petroleum division said Monday.

As oil prices creep upward, lawmakers in Washington are staking out familiar and competing positions over how to address the rising price of energy.

Gov. Chris Christie missed the boat on hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," with his misguided conditional veto of the New Jersey Legislature's bold and forthright Frack Ban Bill. Through a united stand for the people and the environment by the state's leaders.

An Ohio County senator involved in drafting Marcellus shale legislation in West Virginia figures the interim committee "is within three or four amendments of being finished."