Allegations

UGI Corp.’s Pennsylvania-based natural gas utility has agreed to pay a $1 million fine to settle allegations that it failed to adequately maintain and repair a 50-year-old high-pressure gas main in Wilkes Barre.

Wyoming Interstate Co. LLC (WIC) pipeline has asked FERC to approve an offer of settlement and an accompanying stipulation and agreement (S&A) resolving allegations that it was over-recovering its costs, resulting in unjust and unreasonable rates for its shippers.

Two natural gas midstream operators in western Pennsylvania have agreed to improve their facilities after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said they failed to comply with Clean Air Act (CAA) rules to prevent accidental releases of flammable substances.

Firing back at a skeptical regulatory staff’s earlier allegations, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) on Friday made an impassioned plea to California state regulators that it is “on the right path” to improve pipeline safety and its four-year upgrade and safety-strengthening plan should be supported for the most part by gas utility ratepayers.

Despite allegations that a wastewater disposal well in Youngstown may be responsible for about a dozen minor earthquakes in northeast Ohio over the past year, he oil and gas industry supporters told NGI last week that remain confident that the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ (ODNR) decision to temporarily shut down a well will not have an impact on the emerging oil and gas industry in the state’s portions of the Marcellus and Utica shales.

A report soon to be filed with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) by Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. indicates that none of the allegations made against the company by a whistle blower “are resulting in any impact to health or human safety,” Cabot spokesman George Stark told NGI’s Shale Daily. Scott Ely, a former employee of Cabot subsidiary GasSearch Drilling Services (GDS), has alleged that the company failed to report drilling wastewater spills and other mishaps in Susquehanna County, PA, during his two years at GDS. The report, which is in the hands of Cabot’s attorneys, will probably be handed over to DEP by the end of the month, Stark said. Ely was one of the 20 plaintiffs in a complaint against Cabot and the DEP which was settled when an Environmental Hearing Board judge on Wednesday refused to force the company to continue water deliveries in Dimock Township, PA (see Shale Daily, Dec. 2).

While trying to deflect regulatory attorneys’ allegations of “significant safety issues” with one filing to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) Monday, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) separately asked the CPUC to allow it to raise pressure on three key natural gas transmission pipeline links on the San Francisco peninsula. It also submitted a monthly report indicating that it is nearing the completion of the hydrostatic testing of top-priority pipe segments in highly populated areas.

The couple at the center of state and federal investigations of alleged water well contamination by gas drilling activities in North Texas has filed suit against Range Resources Corp. and others, seeking damages of $4.5 million plus $2 million for mental anguish, attorney fees, as well as trebling of damages under the Texas Business and Commercial Code.

The Interior Department scored a partial victory last Wednesday when U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman in Louisiana rejected industry allegations that the department exceeded its authority under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) by imposing new permitting requirements for developmental drilling in the western Gulf of Mexico (GOM).