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As part of its ongoing $100 million annual clean transportation program, California energy officials approved another $5.58 million in grants Wednesday to multiple projects, and separately a regional air pollution control board added $3.8 million for hydraulic hybrid gas-powered and other heavy duty fleet vehicles operating in the air quality region.

As another step forward to use dedicated liquefied natural gas (LNG)-powered barges in its maritime transport, Royal Dutch Shell plc recently launched the first dedicated LNG barge from a shipyard in the Netherlands for transporting liquids products on the Rhine River. Shell already has touted similar petroleum product shipping in the United States (see Daily GPI, March 6).

GreenHunter Energy Inc., which last month saw its water handling facility in an Ohio town stormed by dozens of protestors, now faces another type of protest, with a southeastern Ohio community group demanding that the U.S. Coast Guard study the potential environmental impacts of the company’s proposed hydraulic fracturing (fracking) wastewater transfer station on the Ohio River in New Matamoras, OH.

In some cases operators just aren’t drilling and in others they are leaving the state for greener pastures as 2012 continued to be another year for declining natural gas production in Northwest New Mexico’s San Juan Basin, according to the latest state statistics that showed the region produced 780 Bcf last year.

In some cases operators just aren’t drilling and in others they are leaving the state for greener pastures as 2012 continued to be another year for declining natural gas production in Northwest New Mexico’s San Juan Basin, according to the latest state statistics that showed the region produced 780 Bcf last year.

Williams and Boardwalk Pipeline Partners LP are partnering on a pipeline project to carry mixed (y-grade) natural gas liquids (NGL) from the Marcellus and Utica shales to the U.S. Gulf Coast as well as the petrochemical market in the Northeast.

A Pennsylvania official said royalties from Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling on public lands will add about $60 million to state coffers this year.

Dry gas player Southwestern Energy Co. is having “success in a low gas-price environment,” not just surviving, said CEO Steve Mueller.

Integrys Energy Group’s Trillium CNG opened another fueling location for compressed natural gas (CNG) at a public transit center in Glenwood Springs, CO. The Roaring Fork Transportation Authority expects about one-third of its public transit buses will be running on CNG by this fall. Trillium builds and operates natural gas fueling stations throughout the nation. Trillium has been building these fueling stations for 20 years and won the contract with Roaring Fork through a competitive bid. The transit authority bills itself as the first rural bus rapid transit system in the nation, drawing recognition from the Obama administration last year. The new system will operate with CNG buses between Glenwood Springs and Aspen.