Began

Production began last Saturday from Buccaneer Energy Ltd.’s Kenai Loop No. 1 well in gas-hungry Southcentral Alaska. The well is expected to produce up to 5 MMcf/d during the next two to three months while performance is monitored.

Air Liquide Industrial US LP plans to build an air separation unit in northwestern North Dakota to supply nitrogen to industrial customers, specifically those involved in growing Bakken Shale operations. The unit is expected to be operational by the end of 2012. The French company supplies gases that include nitrogen and carbon dioxide to North American producers to support drilling operations and increase resource recovery. “We are positioning ourselves to better serve existing customers and to capture new business opportunities in North Dakota, especially in the Bakken oil reserves,” said Air Liquide’s Mark Lostak, president of the company’s U.S. arm. “The potential throughout this region is significant, and we are prepared to meet the growing demand for nitrogen to develop these important domestic energy resources.”

The West Virginia state Senate unanimously approved Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s version of a Marcellus Shale regulatory reform bill on Tuesday by a 33-0 vote.

A judge in Pennsylvania has denied a request by several Dimock Township families to force Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. to continue delivering potable water to their homes.

Pacific Gas and Electric, which has had simultaneous Stage 1 low-inventory/high-inventory OFOs in effect consistently on its California Gas Transmission system since it began them July 8 due to lower pressures from pipe remediation work (see Daily GPI, July 8), said it will have an OFO-free gas day Thursday.

California regulators Thursday began to consider whether Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) violated state or federal rules regarding pipeline classification in the wake of the San Bruno transmission pipeline rupture and explosion last year. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) opened the case at its regular business meeting in San Francisco.

Merchant Energy Holdings LLC’s East Cheyenne Gas Storage LLC began pad gas injections at its facility in northeastern Colorado. The independent natural gas storage facility is interconnected with Kinder Morgan’s (KM) Trailblazer Pipeline in Logan County, CO with plans to interconnect to KM’s Rockies Express Pipeline in the future. East Cheyenne’s backers tout it as the first operational independent gas storage facility in the Rocky Mountain region, and through its interconnect with Trailblazer they contend it will be able to serve customers in Colorado’s Front Range along with shippers on other pipelines in the area. Initial withdrawal capabilities are scheduled for the first quarter. At an industry conference in Los Angeles last month, Merchant Energy Holdings CEO Andy Lang said the project will eventually have 14-20 Bcf of total capacity by 2015 (see Daily GPI, Oct. 14).

Mexico’s energy secretary said Tuesday that the nation’s natural gas reserves could be multiplied as much as six fold after the discovery of large shale gas deposits in the country’s north and east, and could enable the country to stop importing natural gas.

The first field demonstrations began Tuesday of a micro “fueling station in a box” technology for refueling compressed natural gas (CNG)-powered fleet vehicles at Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) utility, one of several public and private organizations participating in the demonstration.