Category: Shale Gas

The New York Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state, heard oral arguments this week in two cases regarding whether municipalities can use local zoning laws to prohibit hydraulic fracturing within the city boundaries, or whether the state’s law regulating oil and gas development within the state preempts a municipality’s local zoning laws. Presenting their cases before the seven judges on the bench, attorneys for the upstate New York towns of Dryden and Middlefield argued on the side of local zoning laws being able to prohibit oil and gas activities within a municipality’s boundaries, while a trustee for Oslo, Norway-based Norse Energy challenged the Dryden ban. Cooperstown Holstein, a dairy farm that leased land for drilling, challenged the ban by Middlefield. Lower courts had found no express or implied preemption. The Appellate Division, Third Department affirmed in May 2013 earlier Supreme Court decisions that dismissed both lawsuits, […]

Click here to view full article at www.rigzone.com

Michigan’s attorney general filed criminal charges against Chesapeake Energy Corp. , alleging that the natural-gas producer misled landowners to obtain leases in the state. Prosecutors contend that Chesapeake in 2010 assured Michigan landowners that holding mortgages weren’t obstacles to signing leases allowing the company to drill for gas, but later cited those mortgages as a reason for canceling the deals. "Chesapeake therefore obtained uncompensated land options from these landowners by false pretenses, and prevented competitors from using the land," the attorney general’s office said Thursday. The complaint says that Chesapeake signed leases with as many as 800 landowners, but honored fewer than 30 leases. "We believe this action has no merit and we will vigorously contest these baseless allegations," said Gordon Pennoyer, a spokesman for the company, which is based in Oklahoma City. The charges include one felony count of conducting a criminal enterprise and eight felony counts of […]

Click here to view full article at online.wsj.com

North America-based petrochemical companies are likely to enjoy a competitive advantage over their rivals based elsewhere for the next several years as a result of the US shale gas revolution, which provides both inexpensive feedstocks and fuel for the petchems industry, a senior Standard & Poor’s analyst said Tuesday. "The ability to extract low-cost ethane and put it through a steam cracker and create ethylene and all the derivatives, that’s been very favorable for companies that have operated in North American versus companies in other parts of the world," Henry Fukuchi, director of ratings and analytics at S&P, said on the sidelines of the Benposium conference in Houston. S&P and Platts are both units of McGraw-Hill Financial. Global demand for petrochemicals has historically grown about 4% annually and Fukuchi said he expects that growth rate to remain constant for the next several years, driven by economic development in China […]

Click here to view full article at www.platts.com

North America-based petrochemical companies are likely to enjoy a competitive advantage over their rivals based elsewhere for the next several years as a result of the US shale gas revolution, which provides both inexpensive feedstocks and fuel for the petchems industry, a senior Standard & Poor’s analyst said Tuesday. "The ability to extract low-cost ethane and put it through a steam cracker and create ethylene and all the derivatives, that’s been very favorable for companies that have operated in North American versus companies in other parts of the world," Henry Fukuchi, director of ratings and analytics at S&P, said on the sidelines of the Benposium conference in Houston. S&P and Platts are both units of McGraw-Hill Financial. Global demand for petrochemicals has historically grown about 4% annually and Fukuchi said he expects that growth rate to remain constant for the next several years, driven by economic development in China […]

Click here to view full article at www.platts.com

Rigzone Staff 6/3/2014 URL: http://www.rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/133391/Texas_RRC_Oil_Gas_Production_Not_to_Blame_for_Well_Water_Contamination Water contamination from explosive gas in the water supply of a North Texas neighborhood cannot be linked to nearby drilling, the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) said in a recent report. The investigation began after seven property owners in the neighborhood contacted the RRC about rising levels of methane in their water wells. An eighth property owner also found an increase of chloride in two water wells. In its finding that there was an insufficient link between the contamination of well water in the Silverado on the Brazos (Silverado) neighborhood in southern Parker County and drilling in the nearby Barnett Shale, the RRC, which regulates the state’s oil and gas industry, noted that the contamination has worsened in five of the eight private water wells it tested in September 2013, compared to the contamination measured in the same wells in 2010 and 2011. However, the RRC […]

Click here to view full article at www.rigzone.com

US exports of LNG to Asia are more likely to be determined by overseas market dynamics than by US government policies, witnesses told a US House Foreign Affairs Committee subcommittee on May 29. The observations came as the US Department of Energy proposed giving priority in its national interest determinations to LNG export proposals that already meet National Environmental Policy act requirements ( OGJ Online, May 29, 2014 ). “I think there’s a prevailing view in the industry that LNG prices in Asia will come down to around $13[/MMbtu} and domestic gas prices will rise to around $6. That would make exports close to a wash for US producers,” Mikkal E. Herberg, research director in the National Bureau of Asian Research’s Energy Security Program, told the committee’s Asia and the Pacific Subcommittee. Jane Nakano, a fellow in the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Energy and National Security […]

Click here to view full article at www.ogj.com

Start with exotic Nazi technology, take a detour with South African apartheidists, and add a bit role for Iranian imams. What you have is—what else? —one of the most improbable and important American business stories of the past decade. It’s the tale of a company called , the former South African state oil company, which is embarking on what could be the single-largest foreign investment project in U.S. history. Sasol is building a 3,034-acre energy complex near a bayou in Lake Charles, La. Tapping into cheap, fracked natural gas as well as the pipeline and shipping infrastructure along the Gulf Coast, Sasol plans to spend as much as $21 billion there. It is expensive, elaborate and dirty work. Sasol plans to reduce, or "crack," the gas into ethylene, a raw chemical used in plastics, paints and food packaging. It also plans to convert the gas into high-quality diesel and […]

Click here to view full article at online.wsj.com

Start with exotic Nazi technology, take a detour with South African apartheidists, and add a bit role for Iranian imams. What you have is—what else? —one of the most improbable and important American business stories of the past decade. It’s the tale of a company called , the former South African state oil company, which is embarking on what could be the single-largest foreign investment project in U.S. history. Sasol is building a 3,034-acre energy complex near a bayou in Lake Charles, La. Tapping into cheap, fracked natural gas as well as the pipeline and shipping infrastructure along the Gulf Coast, Sasol plans to spend as much as $21 billion there. It is expensive, elaborate and dirty work. Sasol plans to reduce, or "crack," the gas into ethylene, a raw chemical used in plastics, paints and food packaging. It also plans to convert the gas into high-quality diesel and […]

Click here to view full article at online.wsj.com