Oil and gas from shale fields now account for 10% of Anadarko Petroleum Corp.'s (APC) production, up from 1% just a few years ago, Chief Executive Jim Hackett said Tuesday.

The Woodlands, Texas-based independent has operations in major shale fields such as South Texas 's Eagleford shale, the Marcellus in the U.S. northeast, and the Haynesville shale in Louisiana . The company is in the midst of a production ramp-up led by increased offshore drilling activity and by recent exploration successes in Africa and the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, where the company's exploration efforts will "return to pre-moratorium levels this year," Hackett said.

The company plans to drill around six exploration wells, Hackett added in a conference call with investors. But the lead time necessary to complete the wells will be "meaningfully" longer due to stricter new regulations, Hackett added.

Several of the company's projects are reaching fruition this year. Hackett said that Anadarko will see the first significant volumes from the El Merk project in Algeria by year-end 2012.

Also, first production is expected at the Caesar/Tonga development in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico by mid-2012, which will help offset declining output at existing Gulf properties by providing a "very nice bump" toward the middle of the year, an Anadarko executive said.

Other projects are also advancing: first production at Lucius, a recent major U.S. Gulf of Mexico discovery, is expected in 2014, Hackett said.

Amid a slump in natural gas prices, Anadarko is looking for opportunities to utilize some of its drilling rigs currently drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus shale in the neighboring, oil-rich Utica shale, but "the economics we still see in the Marcellus are good," an executive said.

The company, which has put its Brazil assets on the block, has "just begun marketing our Indonesian assets" as well, and some gas-producing properties in South Texas , an Anadarko executive said.
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