Insight: Peak, pause or plummet? Shale oil costs at crossroads

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Occidental Petroleum was among the first major U.S.

Bill Francis submits: With Reliance and Quicksilver (KWK) honing in on a Horn River Basin Joint Venture and this being Reliance's third major deal within the past 4 months, I wanted to look back at what the major acquisitions consisted of in the top 5 shale basins since the natural gas price collapse in 2008.

1. Wall Street Journal -- "Shale-gas production is spurring construction of plants that make chemicals, plastics, fertilizer, steel and other products. A report issued earlier this month by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC estimated that such investments could create a million U.S. manufacturing jobs over the next 15 years.

Occidental Petroleum also says it will sell its operations in Argentina for $2.5 billion and increase its dividends to shareholders.

Oxy says it is acquiring $3.2 billion in crude and natural gas assets in North Dakota and Texas, will increase holdings in pipelines and will boost dividends to shareholders.Occidental Petroleum Corp.

By Bruce Vanderveen:Awe-inspiring growth. So it has gone in the Eagle Ford Shale lately. Relatively unknown until a few years ago, a recently published Reuters' article now describes the play as "hotter than the Bakken."

Whether crude costs $60 a barrel or twice that amount, the U.S. is almost free of depending on imported energy and positioned to supplant Saudi Arabia as the world’s No. 1 producer of oil.

For all the debate over building the Keystone XL pipeline, the oil is moving without it. Railroads such as Warren Buffett’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC are the rolling alternative, keeping oil flowing from the Bakken in North Dakota to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast, as the White House deliberates on the fate of TransCanada Corp.’s petroleum artery. They’re boosting employment in the process: Rail transportation payrolls have climbed by 9.1%, a pace more than twice as fast as total job growth, since the end of 2009.