Category: Shale Gas

It seems like only yesterday that big winter storms or other extreme weather events could curtail or shut natural gas production in the US. A winter storm and freezing temperatures in the Northeast or in the Southeast would prompt freeze-offs or shut-ins along pipelines. But perhaps no longer. When I joined Platts as a gas markets reporter in February 2011 — another abnormally cold winter (at least in Houston) — I would see cash markets bounce around as freeze-offs and other shut-ins shook up prices. In a testament to fast-growing natural gas production and infrastructure, though, particularly in the Northeast, Hurricane Sandy had a minimal impact to Marcellus gas production in 2012. Gas pipelines also fared well in the aftermath of the hurricane. A year ago, in a winter that is widely regarded as being insanely cold, things appeared to fall more in line with historical expectations.  Freeze-offs in the Northeast […]

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In this Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2011 file photo, a brine injection well in Youngstown, Ohio. (Bloomberg) — An Ohio city lost a battle for control over oil and gas drilling permits within its borders with the Ohio Supreme Court saying the authority belongs to the state. The ruling on Tuesday runs counter to decisions issued by New York’s top court last year and the highest Pennsylvania court in 2013 as local municipalities concerned over the effects of hydraulic fracturing seek to limit the practice. More than 400 measures to prevent or control fracking have been passed by U.S. cities and counties according to Food & Water Watch, a Washington-based environmental advocacy group. The process, which involves the injection of water, chemicals and sand below ground to extract oil and gas from shale formations, has been criticized as environmentally dangerous, even as its use has driven U.S. natural gas production […]

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Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf is making few friends in the shale natural gas industry with early-term policies. Photo courtesy Commonwealth of Pennsylvania HARRISBURG, Pa., Feb. 12 (UPI) — The state’s governor said gas taxes will help schools, but an energy coalition working in Pennsylvania said it will discourage capital spending plans in shale. Arguing schools have suffered from $1 billion in funding cuts, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf proposed a severance tax on gas extraction in the state to help right the state’s economic ship. The state hosts the Marcellus shale natural gas formation, which accounts for almost 40 percent of all shale gas produced in the United States. The governor’s proposal, dubbed the Pennsylvania Education Reinvestment Act, calls for a 5 percent tax plus 4.7 cents per thousand feet of gas extracted. The governor said the proposal is modeled after severance tax plans in other states in the region, […]

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Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf reinstates moratorium on oil and gas leases in state land. (Photo: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania) Louis D’Amico, president and executive director of the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association, said the moratorium struck a blow against an industry that’s already returned more than $700 million in revenue to the state in the last seven years. "This is a lose-lose for Pennsylvania’s taxpayers and energy consumers," he said in a statement Thursday. His comments follow a decision from state Gov. Tom Wolf to reinstate a moratorium on oil and gas leases in state parks and forests. A ban was enacted in 2010 by Gov. Ed Rendell , but modified last year by Gov. Tom Corbett to allow drillers to explore for oil or gas so long as it didn’t interfere with land integrity. Wolf said the decision was about striking a balance to economic vitality and preservation. […]

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By Kris Maher The natural gas industry sharply criticized Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s decision Thursday to reinstate a moratorium on future drilling in state parks and forests, which includes cases where private landowners own the mineral rights beneath parks. Mr. Wolf, a Democrat who took office two weeks ago, signed an executive order barring new leases for oil and gas development on those public lands. Unlike with state forests, Pennsylvania doesn’t own the mineral rights for the vast majority of land beneath state parks. At a public signing, Mr. Wolf noted that the parks in the state are visited by 38 million people annually, support more than 13,000 jobs and bring in $1.2 billion to the state’s economy. "Natural gas development is vital to Pennsylvania’s economy, but so is the economic and environmental viability of our parks and forests," Mr. Wolf said. Dave Spigelmyer, head of the Marcellus Shale […]

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Sign image via weaverphoto/flickr. Creative Commons license. 2.0. This past November, Gov. Tom Corbett became the first standing governor in the last 40 years in Pennsylvania to lose a second term reelection. As the GOP scored overwhelming victories nationally that November night, incumbent Gov. Corbett lost by more than 325,000 votes to Democrat Tom Wolf. Corbett was a powerful first term governor who oversaw the huge shale gas industry drilling boom in the Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale formation which vaulted the state into the middle of a unexpected U.S. energy boom. By the time Corbett took office for his first term, Pennsylvania’s shale gas industry was creating jobs in several of the depressed regions of the state and had created an opportunity for a tax revenue base which would have been the envy of virtually all mid-Atlantic and northeast region states. Yet these facts did not translate into success for […]

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Houston (Platts)–8Jan2015/245 pm EST/1945 GMT A continued increase in demand for natural gas for use in power generation is expected to be the biggest driver for US gas demand in the coming year, the chief economist of the American Petroleum Institute said. "The biggest trend is probably what we’ve seen in previous years and that’s more natural gas in power generation, as we see more coal plants shut down, primarily for environmental regulations," John Felmy said in an interview Wednesday. "You may see some increases in industry use as the economy improves and perhaps some commercial [demand], but I think electric power is going to be the biggest growth." According to the "The State of American Energy Report 2015," API’s annual outlook on US energy trends for the new year released earlier this week, "The United States has vaulted past Russia to become the world’s largest natural gas producer […]

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