Joe Fisher

Walls and driveways are cracked at homes in and around Azle, TX; sinkholes have wiped out property values; children and horses are scared, and the elderly are rousted from their beds in the middle of the night — all by a swarm of more than 30 earthquakes since early November that the afflicted blame on drilling waste injection wells in the region.

Natural gas lost a bit of ground last year in its share of the Texas power generation pie, according to data released by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the grid operator for most of the state.

The shale gas boom has sown profits and smiles from wellhead to burner tip, but as gas prices and basis differentials have been flattened, along with traditional seasonal arbitrage, gas storage operators have been excluded from the party.

The state of Alaska and ExxonMobil Corp., BP plc, ConocoPhillips and TransCanada Corp. have signed a heads of agreement (HOA) for the proposed Alaska liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, which would provide gas to Alaskans and be one of the largest export projects of its kind in the world.

About 90% of Sanchez Energy Corp.’s drilling and completion spending this year will target the Eagle Ford Shale, with the remainder going to the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS) where the company expects industry activity, and learning, to accelerate.

Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) commissioners voted unanimously to appoint Richard A. Hyde, a licenses professional engineer, as executive director for the agency effective immediately. He succeeds Zak Covar, who was recently appointed as a TCEQ commissioner. Hyde has served as deputy executive director since 2012. He also served as deputy director of the state’s Office of Compliance and Enforcement, the Office of Permitting and Registration, and was director of the Air Permits Division for five years. Hyde joined the TCEQ in 1992 and worked as a permit engineer, team leader and manager in the Air Permits Division.

Dallas-based Southcross Energy Partners LP said its South Texas operations continued to grow during the fourth quarter. Processed gas volumes increased by about 13% over third quarter volumes, and sales volumes of natural gas liquids were about 28% greater. “Southcross enters 2014 with solid operational performance, and we believe we are well-positioned to focus on expanding our assets in the Eagle Ford Shale,” said David Biegler, CEO of Southcross’ general partner. The partnership’s South Texas assets are between Houston and Freer, TX, and have access to the Corpus Christi ship channel market. They consist of 1,595 miles of pipeline with an estimated capacity of about 590 MMcf/d, two fractionators, two gas treating plants and about 40 compressors. Southcross also has operations in Mississippi and Alabama.

The state of Alaska will be an equity partner in a pipeline and natural gas liquefaction project that would at last commercialize the state’s vast stranded natural gas resource, Gov. Sean Parnell said Friday.

FERC on Friday released its draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) for Sempra Energy’s Cameron LNG export project along the Calcasieu Channel in Hackberry, LA. It recommends multiple mitigation measures for the brownfield project but finds that adverse environmental impacts “would not be significant.”