Allowing

British Columbia’s (BC) largest gas distributor has taken a lead position in a program allowing utilities and their customers to fund incentives for natural gas vehicle (NGV) use, thereby boosting the market for the province’s production.

British Columbia’s (BC) largest gas distributor has taken a lead position in a program allowing utilities and their customers to fund incentives for natural gas vehicle (NGV) use, thereby boosting the market for the province’s production.

As was expected, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman on Tuesday signed into law a measure allowing the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality (NDEQ) to resume its review and oversight of an alternate route for the northern portion of the Keystone XL oil pipeline project. It is effective Wednesday.

Proposed federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) rules on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) violate the spirit of an earlier order by President Obama that called for the “least burdensome” regulations to be applied to allow for predictability and certainty, Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead told U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in a letter last Thursday.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has given Florida Gas Transmission the go-ahead to begin service on its Mobile Bay Lateral Extension, allowing it to transport regasified liquefied natural gas (LNG) from a new LNG import terminal in Mississippi. The nine-mile extension would connect the Gulf LNG Clean Energy terminal facilities in south Pascagoula, AL, with the existing Mobile Bay Lateral in Mobile County, AL. The extension facilities would clear the way for the delivery of 342,610 MMBtu/d of regasified LNG from the LNG plant to the gas-hungry market in the Sunshine State. The 1.3 Bcf/d LNG terminal began the decommissioning process in June and is expected to be officially up and running in October. The terminal is owned by partners El Paso Corp. (50%), Crest Group (30%) and Angolan national oil company Sonangol (20%).

Columbia Gas (TCO) said system operational conditions have improved, allowing it to lift Monday a Critical Day for storage that had been in effect for the previous two days. Daily storage penalties are no longer in effect and interruptible services, including AutoPAL (Park and Loan), are now available, the pipeline said. TCO also said it took the WB-Loop from Granny’s Creek valve to Gassaway valve, located in Braxton and Clay counties, WV, out of service for five days Monday to make modifications to the pipeline. Four production meters have been shut in for the duration of the outage, affecting 3,406 Dth/d.

In response to new state legislation (SB 412), California regulators on Thursday revised the state’s incentive program for on-site power generation, allowing up to 25% of the awards to go to nonrenewable combined heat and power (CHP) self generation that includes natural gas-fired cogeneration.

The mayor of Pittsburgh said he would not sign a measure allowing voters to decide whether to ban natural gas extraction in the city, but the city council is still trying to get the referendum on the ballot.

Attorneys for the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and an EQT Corp. subsidiary plan to appeal a Doddridge County judge’s ruling allowing a surface owner to have a gas well permit issued by the DEP revoked.