Briefly Noted

Tourmaline Oil, already the largest producer in Western Canada’s red-hot Montney Shale play, is buying privately held Black Swan Energy for C$1.1 billion (US$909 million) in stock and the assumption of C$350 million in debt. Calgary-based Tourmaline has been snatching up assets in the northeast BC Montney play and by next year this deal could push its production to half a million barrels of oil equivalent per day, heavily weighted to gas. * * * Production of crude oil and natural gas in New Mexico reached a new record in March, averaging 6.19 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas and 1.16 million barrels per day of crude, according to the Energy Information Administration. The March rise in oil and gas production were the largest monthly increases on record for New Mexico, the EIA said. The increased production occurred after a month when production fell in response to the extreme winter weather in the South Central region. New Mexico's increased production in March was a result of both new wells coming on line and existing wells coming back on line after being shut in during the cold snap. * * * The Electric Reliability Council of Texas asked Texans to reduce electric use as much as possible through Friday, as a significant number of forced generation outages combined with potential record electric use for the month of June has resulted in tight grid conditions. Monday’s peak load may exceed 73,000 MW, Ercot said, smashing the previous record for June of 69,123 MW set on Jun. 27, 2018. A reported 11,000 megawatts of generation are on forced outage for repairs. Some 8,000 MW of that total is fossil fuel-fired generation and the rest is intermittent resources.