Annually

The United States could take back the $300 billion it loses annually in foreign oil imports through an energy intensive strategy that exploits all of the nation’s energy resources — fossil fuels and renewables alike — retired Gen. Wesley Clark said Tuesday at the Alternative Clean Transportation (ACT) Expo in Long Beach, CA.

Twenty inspectors with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) have filed a grievance with the state, alleging the agency’s plans to hire additional Marcellus Shale inspectors are unfair because the new hires will be paid more and have fewer prerequisites.

Even with a continuing slow recovery in the regional economy, natural gas demand is expected to grow steadily at just under 1% annually during the next 10 years, with gas used for power generation expected to lead the growth, according to the 2012 Gas Outlook released Saturday by the Northwest Gas Association (NWGA).

Companies that trade less than an aggregate of $8 billion in swaps annually during an initial phase-in period will not be caught up in many of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s regulations issued as a result of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, according to a final rule approved last Wednesday. The Commission also clarified that end-users would be exempt.

Companies that trade less than an aggregate of $8 billion in swaps annually during an initial phase-in period will not be caught up in many of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s regulations issued as a result of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, according to a final rule approved Wednesday. The Commission also clarified that end-users would be exempt.

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.

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).

As Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia battle it out for an ethane cracker, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) is touting the benefits of building such a facility at the other end of the Rust Belt.

MarkWest Energy Partners LP, which teamed up with private equity fund The Energy & Minerals Group (EMG) three years ago to create one of the largest natural gas processing companies in the Marcellus Shale, now sees a “critical” need to create similar midstream infrastructure in the emerging Utica Shale, CEO Frank Semple said late Monday.