Utah’s Mancos shale gets strong attention from Uinta Basin operators.

Unconventional wells are producing unexpected payoffs.

A shale that's enjoying a shot in the arm is the Cretaceous Baxter in the Greater Green River Basin.

Three Texas Panhandle, Ark-La-Tex and Appalachia formations have uncommonly fine responses to multiple stimulations in horizontal wells.

Comet Ridge has assembled a commanding position in a western Washington State basin.

Canadian firm Shelton Canada Corp. focuses on opportunities in Ukraine, an Eastern European country that gained its independence in 1991.  

BPI Energy has been chipping away at CBM in the Illinois Basin since 2001, and showing consistent progress.

An intriguing coalbed-methane (CBM) development is being pushed ahead by small Denver-based independent New Frontier Energy Inc. The company's Slater Dome prospect, in the Sand Wash Basin of south-central ...more

North Dakota's horizontal Bakken play is white hot in the vicinity of EOG Resources Inc.'s Parshall Field, a 50- to 70-million-barrel (net) gem discovered by the Houston-based operator in 2006 ...more

In the span of a decade and a half, Wyoming's Powder River Basin has been transformed from an inconsequential gas-producing region to one of the nation's major supply provinces. And ...more

Determined operators are slowly chipping away at a tough shale play that could add another layer of production to the Black Warrior Basin's unconventional resource mix. The Upper Mississippian ...more

A couple of discoveries are lighting up activity in the Paradox Basin of southeastern Utah and southwestern Colorado. Denver-based independent Delta Petroleum Corp. is in the midst of an exploration ...more

The immense potential of oil shale overshadows existing proved oil reserves. The U.S. Geological Survey has estimated world oil-shale resources of 2.7 trillion barrels, more than twice the 1.2 trillion ...more

Two small Houston-based firms each have gigantic projects under way in Africa. Offshore the east side of the continent, on the island nation of Madagascar, privately held Madagascar Oil ...more

Petroleum exploration today is a complex and nuanced business, and the best approach is one that offers a broad portfolio that features multiple play types. "We're living in a time ...more

A state coastal restoration plan that will be financed by new federal offshore oil revenues is nearing completion in Louisiana. The plan will address the rapid loss of coastal wetlands, ...more

Dominion Black Warrior Basin Inc. has made a remote new-field discovery in northern St. Clair County, Alabama. The find is in the Valley and Ridge province of the Cotton State, ...more

Success stories in the horizontal Bakken continue to mount. Production has spread from the play's genesis in Richland County, Montana, into McKenzie, Golden Valley and Billings counties, North Dakota. The ...more

During the past three years, several factors have fundamentally reshaped business activity in the U.K. North Sea. That reshaping has resulted in a brisk and brutally competitive market, according to ...more

A late October state lease sale in Washington produced some excellent bids, and served to swell the already considerable buzz about gas potential in the Evergreen State. Specifically, people ...more

Onshore wildcatting is on the rise, a wonderful aspect of the current boom. Some of these tests are long-cherished prospects: perhaps they were originally generated just before a price collapse, ...more

Trying to be a foreign oil producer in Venezuela can be a dicey proposition these days. However, where some companies see untenable political risk, others see the possibility of stunning ...more

Shales have moved to the forefront of exploration in the onshore U.S. The rousing success of the Mississippian Barnett Shale play in North Texas has inspired a sweeping search for ...more

The victor in Mexico's hotly contested presidential election was apparently Felipe Calderon, the conservative candidate of the National Action Party (PAN). However, his win was secured by a razor-thin margin, ...more

Peak oil, global warming, ANWR, environmental degradation-all topics that grab headlines today and raise public concerns. Like many others with a lifetime of work in the oil industry, I hold ...more

Canada ranks as the third-largest producer of natural gas in the world, behind only first-place Russia and the U.S. Currently, Canadian production stands at 17 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of ...more

Deepwater drillers in the Gulf of Mexico have to contend with many issues-rig availability, lease expirations, opaque subsalt seismic images, and stunning inflation in service costs. If those challenges aren't ...more