Category: Shale Gas

North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple announced startup company North Dakota LNG will build a gas processing plant in Tioga, the first of its kind for the state. North Dakota LNG said they’d start construction at the Tioga liquefied natural gas processing plant this summer. First phase operations will produce 10,000 gallons of LNG per day. Phase two operations, scheduled for 2015, will bring production levels to more than 76,000 gallons per day. The company has a contract with Hess. Corp. to receive residual gas for the Tioga feedstock. Dalrymple said LNG from the facility will be used for commercial fuel. "This is an exciting day for North Dakota," he said in a statement Wednesday. The company’s chief executive officer, Patrick Hughes, said the facility will give oil and gas operators in the Bakken oil region of the state access to a reliable alternative […]

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

A Feb. 2013 scientific study found an unexpectedly high methane leakage rate in the well-fractured Utah basin. Photo of Utah gas field   credit According to a spate of recent scientific studies from the United States and Australia, the shale gas industry has generated another formidable challenge: methane and radon leakage three times greater than expected. In some cases the volume of seeping methane, a greenhouse gas that traps heat 25 times more effectively than carbon dioxide, is so high it challenges the notion that shale gas can be a bridge to a cleaner energy future, as promoted by the government of British Columbia and other shale gas jurisdictions. "If natural gas is to be a ‘bridge’ to a more sustainable energy future, it is a bridge that must be traversed carefully," warned one 2014 study published in Science. "Diligence will be required to ensure that leakage rates are […]

Click here to view full article at www.resilience.org

Spurred by relatively high values of natural gas liquids (NGL), company interests have shifted from dry gas production to wet gas production, according to the US Energy Information Administration’s monthly gas liquids report. Gas prices have stayed low in recent years due to increased supply. The Henry Hub spot price averaged $3.73/MMbtu in 2013 and $2.75/MMbtu in 2012, reducing profit margins for many gas producers . NGL prices, as being traditionally linked to crude oil, are set at a significant price premium over pipeline-quality dry gas. According to EIA data, more recently, the gas plant liquids composite spot price —which approximates a value of NGL produced at processing plants—has hovered roughly halfway between WTI crude oil and gas spot prices. This liquids price premium has resulted in a faster growth rate of wet gas production compared with that of dry gas. Liquids extracted from wet gas at processing plants […]

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

In recent years, high levels of natural gas production have pushed prices down. The Henry Hub spot price averaged $3.73 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) in 2013. In 2012, the average annual Henry Hub price was $2.75/MMBtu, which reduced profit margins for many natural gas producers . The relatively high value of natural gas liquids (NGL) has led producers to target wet gas. NGL prices have traditionally been linked to crude oil, resulting in a significant price premium over pipeline-quality dry natural gas. More recently, the natural gas plant liquids composite spot price (which approximates a value of NGL produced at natural gas processing plants) has hovered roughly halfway between West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil and natural gas spot prices. The result of this liquids price premium is that wet natural gas production is increasing at a faster rate than dry natural gas production. Liquids extracted from […]

Click here to view full article at www.eia.gov

Lackawanna College, a two-year college in Scranton, Pa., has become a prostitute. The administration doesn’t think of themselves or their college as a prostitute. They believe they are doing a public service. Of course, streetwalkers and call-girls also believe they are doing a public service. Lackawanna College’s price is $2.5 million. That’s how much Cabot Oil & Gas paid to the School of Petroleum and Natural Gas, whose own nine-building campus is in New Milford in northeastern Pennsylvania.  On the School’s logo are now the words, “Endowed by Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation.” That would be the same Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation that has racked up more than 500 violations since it first used horizontal fracking to extract gas in the Marcellus Shale almost six years ago. That would be the same company that was found to be responsible for significant environmental and health damages in Dimock, Pennsylvania. […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com

Nearly 15 million people in New England live within driving distance of America’s biggest natural-gas field, yet heating and electricity prices reached a record for the region this winter. As states stretching from Massachusetts to Maine thaw out from bitter cold, questions linger about why New England hasn’t benefited from the energy boom in the nearby Marcellus Shale. The short answer is not enough pipelines. And the reason is an impasse between pipeline operators and power plants over how to pay for new capacity. The problem is that pipeline operators want long-term contracts in place before they spend the hundreds of millions of dollars necessary to build a new pipeline or expand an existing one. But power companies, which buy gas to fuel generators on a need-to-have-it basis, work on a different timetable. Independent power-plant operators must supply electricity to utilities at the lowest cost possible, and utilities are […]

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

Nearly 15 million people in New England live within driving distance of America’s biggest natural-gas field, yet heating and electricity prices reached a record for the region this winter. As states stretching from Massachusetts to Maine thaw out from bitter cold, questions linger about why New England hasn’t benefited from the energy boom in the nearby Marcellus Shale. The short answer is not enough pipelines. And the reason is an impasse between pipeline operators and power plants over how to pay for new capacity. The problem is that pipeline operators want long-term contracts in place before they spend the hundreds of millions of dollars necessary to build a new pipeline or expand an existing one. But power companies, which buy gas to fuel generators on a need-to-have-it basis, work on a different timetable. Independent power-plant operators must supply electricity to utilities at the lowest cost possible, and utilities are […]

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

Denton, about 40 miles northeast of Azle, is in the heart of the Barnett Shale gas patch. In rural areas the telltale sign of a gas well is a fenced-in field and signs saying, “No Trespassing” and “No Smoking.” But in cities, the placement gets more creative. In Denton, there are wells near the University of North Texas’s football stadium and on the grounds of a high school. But the prospect of a fracked future for their city has prompted a group of activists to fight back. “I didn’t set out to be a fracktivist,” says Maile Bush, a fast-talking stay-at-home mother who lives near the Ogletrees in the Meadows at Hickory Creek. “We’re moms and retirees and doctors and lawyers and nurses. We’re not some Berkeley enclave.” Bush is active in a group called Frack Free Denton, which in February began circulating a petition to outlaw hydraulic fracturing […]

Click here to view full article at america.aljazeera.com

A drilling foreman once told me, “Don’t believe ANY reserve number unless it’s linked to a price.” And, that is just what petroleum geologist and consultant Arthur Berman and his colleague Lyndon Pittinger have done in a new report on the viability of shale gas in New York state. Not surprisingly, when Berman and Pittinger considered what it would cost to extract the shale gas beneath New York state at a profit, the mammoth claims about recoverable reserves made by the oil and gas industry appeared heavily inflated. The stunning conclusion of the report is that at current prices–in the mid-$4 range per thousand cubic feet (mcf)–NONE of the natural gas trapped in the New York portion of the Marcellus can be profitably extracted. It’s possible, of course, that someone would try. But, the economics look very shaky at current prices given what we know about the nature of […]

Click here to view full article at peakoil.com