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An appellate court in Pennsylvania has ruled that compressor stations fit the legal definition of “gas production” and therefore can’t be banned by localities where other aspects of natural gas production are already permitted.

Nova Scotia plans to extend its review of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) until mid-2014, which basically enacts a drilling moratorium in unconventional resources for another two years. However, conventional drilling would continue, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP).

Completing a week of wild roller-coaster ups and downs before basically returning to where it had begun the week, the May natural gas futures contract on Friday streaked higher to close the day at $4.070, up 16.1 cents from Thursday’s close but 1.6 cents less than the previous week’s finish.

Completing a week of wild roller-coaster ups and downs before basically returning to where it had begun the week, the May natural gas futures contract on Friday streaked higher to close the day at $4.070, up 16.1 cents from Thursday’s close but 1.6 cents less than the previous week’s finish.

Conventional natural gas production from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) basically has peaked, but the region’s unconventional gas holds as much if not more potential — if costs can be contained and prices are competitive, a Nexen Marketing USA Inc. executive told attendees at the annual LDC Forum Canada/Industrial Gas Users Association in Toronto.

Conventional natural gas production from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) basically has peaked, but the region’s unconventional gas holds as much if not more potential — if costs can be contained and prices are competitive, a Nexen Marketing USA Inc. executive told attendees at the annual LDC Forum Canada/Industrial Gas Users Association in Toronto.

With April natural gas futures trading within a slim 13.2-cent range on Friday before settling 4.5 cents lower on the day at $7.243, the market basically confirmed that it’s waiting for summer weather and hurricane forecasts to glean its next hint on price direction. Despite the indecisiveness within the market, Friday’s drop secured the streak of five consecutive days of lower settles as April shaved 56.3 cents off for the week.

Newfoundland LNG launched plans last week to build North America’s first liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage and transshipment facility at Grassy Point on Placentia Bay in southeastern Newfoundland. The St. John’s, NF-based company is expecting a burgeoning market for LNG transshipment facilities for overseas imports entering the North American marketplace because of the economics of the LNG trade in the Atlantic Basin.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) last Tuesday issued a policy statement basically reaffirming its process for individually issuing jurisdictional waivers or “no-action letters” for exchanges located in other countries and subject to regulation in those countries and which allow access to their electronic trading systems in the U.S. The statement essentially supports the position of the IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) over that of the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex), and adds some strictures on information sharing with and among regulators.