Continental books room on shale gas network

Continental secured a transportation agreement for access to Project Wildcat, a takeaway project steered by Enable Midstream Partners for Oklahoma shale resources. All told, the project delivers approximately 400 million cubic feet of natural gas to the market in north Texas.

For Continental, it's an outlet for natural gas from the so-called SCOOP and STACK reserves in the Anadarko shale.

Project Wildcat not only provides flow assurance for our growing production in SCOOP and STACK but access to premium markets to maximize the returns on every molecule we sell, Continental Chairman and CEO Harold Hamm said in a statement.

Legacy natural gas assets in the north Texas market are on the decline. Continental's fourth quarter production from the SCOOP basin increased 8 percent from the third quarter, but was slightly lower year-on-year. From STACK, both year-on-year and quarterly output saw gains.

For the shale sector in general, the International Energy Agency has said the limits to takeaway capacity could throttle production in the southern shale belt. Oklahoma, meanwhile, has robust shale resources, but development has been complicated by chronic seismic activity near its reservoirs. The U.S. Geological Survey reported two tremors in the state early Friday.

Project Wildcat, unveiled by Enable Midstream last year, will start operations in June and be at full service by July.