2010

Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. is expanding its operations in the liquids-rich Marcellus Shale.

West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin signed a bill Thursday that offers tax breaks to companies that build an ethane cracker in the state, then jetted off to Houston to meet with Royal Dutch Shell plc executives about their plans to possibly build such a facility in the Mountain State.

Lawmakers in the West Virginia Senate have voted unanimously in favor of a bill extending tax breaks to companies that build an ethane cracker in the state, and have sent the measure to Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin for his signature.

Legislators in the West Virginia House of Delegates on Monday overwhelmingly passed a bill designed to entice companies to build an ethane cracker in the state by slashing the facility’s property taxes for its first 25 years.

Several key supporters of shale development in New York say the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) proposed rules governing high-volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking) are too restrictive and in their current form would drive operators to other states.

West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin told legislators in his State of the State Address on Wednesday that he would intensify efforts to attract an ethane cracker to the state.

Unusually warm winter weather and the ongoing production boom from the nation’s shale plays will help keep natural gas spot prices down in 2012, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofA) said in separate reports Monday.

As the final days for public comment over proposed rules governing high-volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking) tick away, legislators in the New York State Assembly have introduced a flurry of bills on the practice, including one to extend a moratorium on it until June 1, 2013.

While the debate over hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the Cumnock Formation stalls in the North Carolina General Assembly, two municipalities have taken steps to regulate the practice locally.