Gas Natural Inc.subsidiary Energy West Inc. has agreed to sell Wyoming natural gas utility assets, Energy West Wyoming Inc., to Black Hills Corp. for $17 million. The parties said they plan a smooth transition for customers. The transaction is expected to close within a year. Energy West intends to use the proceeds to reinvest in the business. In 2Q2014, Gas Natural reported a $1.4 million loss (minus 14 cents/share), compared with a loss of $300,000 (minus 4 cents) in 2Q2013.

NextDecade LLC and York Capital Management Global Advisors LLC struck a deal for development of mid-scale liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects in Brownsville and Galveston, TX. “York has extensive experience investing across the LNG value chain and provides strong backing to support financing for the advancement of NextDecade’s LNG export projects,” said NextDecade CEO Kathleen Eisbrenner. The Woodlands, TX-based NextDecade and York plan to conduct additional front-end engineering and design analysis in order to pre-file applications with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to permit, site, construct and operate terminals in Brownsville and Galveston within the first quarter of 2015. Last month, NextDecade secured an option on land for the terminal it is considering to site in Galveston (see Daily GPI, Sept. 15). Plans for the Brownsville terminal were announced at the end of 2012 (see Daily GPI, Dec. 20, 2012; Dec. 3, 2012).

The growing importance of natural gas within the global energy mix and the challenges associated with its use are the focus of a SBC Energy Institute FactBook issued by Schlumberger Business Consulting, an arm of the oilfield services giant. “Having long been overlooked as an energy source, natural gas has become a crucial part of the energy mix, mainly because of its abundance and its low carbon content relative to other fossil fuels,” researchers noted. “Depending on data sources, supplies could last for up to 58 years, based on a figure for gas consumption in 2013 of 3.5 trillion cubic meters. Technically recoverable resources, meanwhile, would last for more than 200 years.” The nonprofit institute was established in 2011, and publications are academically reviewed.

Encana Corp.on Monday finished its preliminary investigation of a wellsite incident last week in far western Colorado’s Mesa County that injured two contract workers, one critically, a Denver-based company spokesperson told NGI. The pair was hurt while working on a valve at an Encana gas well that ruptured (see Daily GPI, Oct. 9). There is still no identified cause for the incident, and the spokesperson said “until a more comprehensive review is undertaken, we won’t have further comment.” He noted that the more critically injured worker was still being hospitalized.The wellsite is in the Piceance Basin near Grand Junction, CO.

NuDevco Midstream Development LLC, sponsor of Marlin Midstream Partners LP, said it has bought land in Eunice, NM, to develop a crude oil terminalling site. Financial terms were not disclosed. The land includes rail spurs and truck siting, and the site is being configured to accommodate additional rail space and tank storage. Located in Lea County, NM, the site targets the western Permian Basin, which encompasses the western part of Texas and the southeastern part of New Mexico. NuDevco has continued to purchase assets in the crude oil value chain, including rail cars, crude oil trucks, stabilizer tower units, and storage tanks, the company said. NuDevco CEO W. Keith Maxwell said assets to be developed at the site would be potentially dropped down to Marlin Midstream. Last year the company announced the acquisition of a 28-acre site near Albuquerque, NM (see Shale Daily, Aug. 27, 2013).

Recently released disclosures from the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) show dozens of trains carry millions of gallons of mostly Bakken and Canadian crude oil through the state each week toward refineries on the East Coast. PEMA was ordered to release the documents by the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records after it found the information included in them was not confidential or proprietary (see Shale Daily, Oct. 6). The state’s leading rail companies, Norfolk Southern Railway Co. and CSX Transportation Inc., run a combined total of up to 75 crude trains through Pennsylvania each week, which comes as no surprise given the visibility of the marked tanker cars running through cities such as Pittsburgh as they enter the western part of the state heading east. The reports show that the trains carry a minimum of one million gallons of crude oil each.