Battling

Landowner groups in Ohio say they are battling it out with Chesapeake Energy Corp., the largest leaseholder in the Utica Shale, over the company’s attempts to renegotiate leases to expand acreage and increase the size of drilling units.

The cash- and employee-strapped Colorado state government is battling a growing oil and gas drilling permit backlog created by a combination of a 70% jump in applications between 2007 and 2010 and the recession, which shrank state government. However, oil and gas industry representatives are praising state officials for attempting to address the problem.

San Diego County air pollution regulators are battling California officials over the state’s contention that imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) potentially is raising pollution levels, and they want San Diego Gas and Electric Co. (SDG&E) to do something about it. SDG&E contends that there is no problem and it can’t stop the flow of gas imports anyway.

While stakeholders were battling staff cuts in the New York state agency charged with permitting and oversight of oil and gas drilling, greater potential obstacles to development of the state’s Marcellus Shale fairway loomed with the installation Jan. 1 of the new Democratic state administration.

Even with northern market areas still battling to dig out from under weekend winter storms and more on the way in some sections, as well as very cold weather having settled in almost everywhere else, prices fell at virtually all points Monday. More moderate, albeit still frigid in many cases, temperatures were in the Tuesday forecast for several regions, with warming trends due to continue later in the week.

After battling higher on Monday and then forcing the market lower on Tuesday, the July natural gas futures contract and the people who trade it decided to make Wednesday a draw. The contract traded between $8 and $8.155 before settling the day smack dab in the middle at $8.080, up 1.6 cents from Tuesday.

Battling back from a barrage of criticism from its Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) rival, IntercontinentalExchange, Inc.(ICE) Monday announced two additional big bank advisors to its bid for the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) exchange and launched a conference call to proclaim the virtues of a CBOT merger with the small but fast-growing ICE.

After battling through a third quarter that brought a cooler than normal close to summer and numerous asset impairments, many electric utilities posted lower than expected earnings, while few managed to outdo their results from last year.

Battling a moves to re-impose the cap on prices paid in the secondary transportation market to California, the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA) went on record last week opposing an attempt by Rep. Rick Boucher, D-VA, in a subcommittee mark-up to re-instate the cap legislatively on capacity release and cap transportation rates to the border. However, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission also is seeking industry comments on whether to reimpose its the rate caps on short-term released capacity.