Atlantic

It looks like Gulf of Mexico oil and natural gas drillers can breathe a sigh of relief this year if forecasters at Colorado State University (CSU) hit their mark. The 2015 Atlantic hurricane season is likely to be milder than last year’s and may be one of the least active seasons in decades, according to their study this week.

Natural gas consumers served by Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Co. LLC (Transco) in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic could have saved $2.6 billion from 2012 to 2014 if the pipeline’s proposed Atlantic Sunrise project had been in service, according to researchers at The Pennsylvania State University.

A dozen senators — 11 Democrats and one left-leaning independent, led by Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) — representing eight East Coast states, are urging the Obama administration to shelve plans to open Atlantic Ocean waters to natural gas and oil drilling, which they say would unnecessarily endanger their states’ economic well being.

It may not look like much, but a broad area of low pressure tracking over southern Florida Friday may have the potential to strengthen and move toward natural gas infrastructure along the Gulf Coast early next week, according to one forecaster.

Methane is leaking from at least 570 locations from a most unexpected place, where the continental shelf meets the deeper Atlantic Ocean, scientists are reporting.

The Marcellus Shale has been great, and Pennsylvanians don’t mind too much the associated pipeline development, but tight coordination of multiple projects is necessary, and better communication with communities would be appreciated, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett told FERC last week in comments on the Williams Transco Atlantic Sunrise pipeline project.

The first half of the 2014 Atlantic Hurricane season has produced only three named storms — none of them having any significant impact on the U.S. energy industry — and forecasters at Weather Services International (WSI) don’t expect the second half to be much worse.

Eleven oil and gas trade associations have signed a letter urging the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to make new areas of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, as well as the eastern Gulf of Mexico (GOM), available for leasing.

With almost 10 weeks of the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season gone by and only two named storms having formed, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Thursday said it is more likely than ever that tropical activity this year will remain below normal.