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Interior Secretary Ken Salazar should not be held in contempt for imposing a second moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 after a judge in Louisiana overturned the department’s initial ban, a Justice Department attorney argued Wednesday before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is reportedly close to making a public endorsement of high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) and will unveil a plan to allow the practice on a limited scale initially, but under strict regulation and only in localities that welcome it.

A report published Monday by the group Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States asserts that there is a link between dozens of small earthquakes in Texas’ Barnett Shale and wastewater injection wells that support natural gas drilling.

As one oil and natural gas producer after another highlighted a swing away from drilling for natural gas in second quarter earnings conference calls, the number of operating rigs targeting natural gas fell again last week, dropping seven rigs from the previous week and marking a decline of 44% from the 883 gas-directed rigs operating a year ago, according to the Baker Hughes rig count.

As one oil and natural gas producer after another highlighted a swing away from drilling for natural gas in second quarter earnings conference calls, the number of operating rigs targeting natural gas fell again last week, dropping seven rigs from the previous week and marking a decline of 44% from the 883 gas-directed rigs operating a year ago, according to the Baker Hughes rig count.

After 15 years working to build a market for natural gas in transportation, Seal Beach, CA-based Clean Energy Fuels Corp. has released a public listing of major fleet operators using natural gas vehicles (NGV) in a resources document it is calling “The Road to Natural Gas.” It is a listing of trucking companies, refuse haulers, fleet operators, airports, municipalities and other organizations that have signed new or expanded agreements with Clean Energy to provide transportation fuel and other services for their vehicles and fleets. According to the NGV fuel and infrastructure provider the report contains “only information which has not been previously announced, including recently completed stations on Clean Energy’s designated America’s Natural Gas Highway with a partner, Pilot Flying J, and at other interstate locations. Clean Energy’s report includes new customers that it expects to ultimately use hundreds of thousands of gallons of natural gas fuel every month, according to CEO Andrew Littlefair who added that his company so far this year is exceeding its own internal plans for its core refuse, airport and transit markets. “There are natural gas engines now available for more vehicle classes; the U.S. has an abundant supply of cheap natural gas, and there is a greater understanding of the economic and environmental benefits of using natural gas as a transportation fuel,” Littlefair said.

The Port of Corpus Christi (Texas) accepted a $7 million bid from Oxy Ingleside Property Holdings LLC, a unit of Occidental Petroleum Corp. (Oxy), for a nearly 100-acre campus portion of the former U.S. Naval Station Ingleside (NSI). Oxy Ingleside currently has about 816 acres of the former NSI under purchase contract. The sale agreement for the campus portion will be presented for approval at the Port Commission meeting scheduled for Aug. 14. Occidental Chemical has operated a chemical plant at Ingleside since 1987. The campus portion is the third and final piece of the former naval base to be sold. Oxy has said it plans development of the base property in phased projects worth about $1 billion. Projects could include pipeline and barge facilities to handle liquefied petroleum gas produced from the Eagle Ford Shale; a liquefied natural gas facility also is possible, along with storage for crude oil, condensate and refined products, Oxy officials have told Ingleside City officials. An Oxy spokesman declined to provide further details. “The campus property complements the previous acquisition of the port property by Oxy Ingleside Property Holdings LLC [see Shale Daily, April 2], and we will investigate other uses for the property after closing, said spokesman Eric Moses.

Dry natural gas drilling is coming to a standstill, but BP plc is “looking to see if it might expand” in the liquids-rich Utica Shale after securing a leasehold earlier this year, CEO Bob Dudley said Tuesday.

Hitting a $6/Mcf natural gas price after 2016 is “achievable,” but in four years a $5 gas price now appears more realistic, according to energy analysts with Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. (TPH).