Annual

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Wyoming may begin measuring annual methane emissions not just from Wyoming’s natural gas and oil producers in the Jonah and Pinedale Anticline fields, but from cattle on public lands as well, after the Upper Green River Valley is designated as an air quality nonattainment area.

Royal Dutch Shell plc will decide within the next 18 to 24 months whether to build an ethane cracker in Beaver County, PA, according to a company executive.

Touting potential jobs and economic growth, California energy officials on Wednesday approved approximately $100 million in annual state funds to support the development of more alternative and renewable fuel vehicle technologies. Natural gas as a transportation fuel will benefit directly and indirectly for up to nearly one-third of the allotment.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) published a schedule of annual fees that it will charge designated contract markets (DCM) and registered futures associations for the operation of its self-regulatory organization (SRO) program.

Commissioners in Bradford County, PA — one of Pennsylvania’s most prolific counties for unconventional natural gas drilling — joined nearly all of their contemporaries in the Marcellus Shale and voted unanimously in favor of implementing the state’s impact fee on unconventional gas drilling on Thursday.

Shale development could realistically contribute a 3% annual increase in jobs in Pennsylvania through the remainder of the decade, according to research from Wells Fargo Securities LLC.

When Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett approved Act 13 last month, he gave county officials across the state 60 days to impose an annual fee on unconventional gas wells, or to opt-out. With a month left until the April 14 deadline, almost all of the eligible counties are on the road toward imposing the fee, but the biggest potential hold-out also happens to be the most active county in the Marcellus Shale (see NGI, Feb. 20).

Two environmental groups are asking the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to reconsider its decision to allow WPX Energy Inc. to drill unconventional natural gas wells into the Mancos Shale play in northwest New Mexico’s San Juan Basin.

When Gov. Tom Corbett approved Act 13 last month, he gave county officials across the state 60 days to impose an annual fee on unconventional gas wells, or to opt-out. With five weeks until the April 14 deadline, almost all of the eligible counties are on the road toward imposing the fee, but the biggest potential hold-out also happens to be the most active county in the Marcellus Shale (see Shale Daily, Feb. 15).