The Chinese government approved a production-sharing contract for Royal Dutch Shell PLC and China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) to develop China’s shale gas reserves, Shell Chief Executive Peter Voser said in Beijing Mar. 26.

Cairn India Ltd. and state-owned Oil & Natural Gas Corp. have started oil production from the third field at their Mangala-Bhagyam-Aishwariya (MBA) complex in Rajasthan, India, and commenced natural gas sales from the block.

Production has begun from Stjerne oil and gas field, a subsea development tied back to Oseberg South platform 13 km to the northeast in the North Sea offshore Norway (OGJ Online, Sept. 16, 2011).

US Interior Sec. Ken Salazar issued a record of decision that finalizes a development process for federal oil shale and tar sands resources in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. The US Bureau of Land Management simultaneously proposed revisions to regulations governing commercial development of those resources.

Efforts to boost the use of natural gas in the US should begin with the industry producing the fuel, according an executive of a large independent gas producer.

Chesapeake Energy Corp., Oklahoma City, let a contract to Strategy Engineering & Consulting LLC, Houston, for the design of a central production unit in the Eagle Ford shale.

South Oil Co. of Iraq (SOC) has selected CH2M Hill of Denver to provide project management consultancy services in a project that will provide water to be injected into the oil fields of southern Iraq for enhanced oil recovery.

A group of energy companies, environmental organizations, and philanthropic foundations collaborated to form a center to provide Appalachian basin shale gas producers with an independent, third-party certification process for shale development, organizers announced at a news conference in Pittsburgh.

A subsidiary of state-owned PT Pertamina (Persero) of Indonesia has started producing crude oil and natural gas from KE-38B field at a total rate of 5,400 b/d of oil and 5 MMscfd of gas from the PHE-38B platform recently installed 70 miles offshore Bangkalan, Madura.

Recent pipeline expansions have helped the Marcellus shale play reach a production rate of more than 7 bcfd to become the largest US gas-producing play, according to a new IHS Herold Marcellus Shale Company Play Analysis.

BG Group has started production from its Everest East expansion project in the UK North Sea, expecting output to peak at more than 10,000 boe/d.

Production has begun at an undisclosed rate from subsea Skuld oil field operated by Statoil on the Halten Bank of the Norwegian Sea (OGJ Online, Jan. 20, 2012).

Cuadrilla Resources Ltd. plans to delay plans to start hydraulic fracturing in a Bowland basin shale project in Lancashire, UK, until 2014 to give the company time to get an environmental impact assessment (EIA) for some exploration wells, Cuadrilla Chief Executive Francis Egan said.