2010

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed an objection to BP plc’s $7.8 billion preliminary settlement to resolve court claims following the blowout of the Macondo well in April 2010, saying that it plans to prove “gross negligence or willful misconduct” on the company’s part.

Low prices have made dry gas from shales a producers’ problem and an end-user’s dream. But interests at both ends of the market do agree that the right gas price — the equilibrium price — would make shale gas a boon for the country.

Hope was all but lost last Friday that 11 missing crew members from drilling rig Deepwater Horizon — which burned and sank in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) — would be found, although rescuers continued to search. While some feared an environmental catastrophe, oil sheen on the water appeared to be from the explosion and not a leaking well, officials said.

An environmental group opposed to high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) in New York State has launched a campaign asking the top 1,000 contributors to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s reelection effort to pressure him to ban the practice.

British Columbia (BC) Premier Christy Clark trekked north to see new gas processing and pipeline facilities start work in the resource-rich region where Canada’s western-most province meets the Yukon and Northwest Territories.

Citing a 2010 Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) natural gas study, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) on Tuesday questioned the efficiency of using natural gas supplies to produce electricity to power electric vehicles (EV), rather than pushing natural gas vehicles (NGV) as competitors to EVs.

Natural gas storage companies say they are not concerned that Pennsylvania will run out of underground capacity, despite last winter’s mild weather, higher-than-normal amounts of gas already in storage and increased production from the Marcellus Shale.

The first four in a series of 10 short films on energy from the director and producer of “Haynesville: A Nation’s Hunt for an Energy Future” (see Shale Daily, Nov. 23, 2010) debuted at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado this week.

Critics of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in California lament an alleged lack of information from the oil/natural gas industry, but producers are trying to counter what they consider to be gross misinformation on the drilling practice.