Best

Revenues from natural gas liquids (NGL) — particularly those from liquids-rich shale plays — have been like a mega vitamin for anemic dry gas economics, but it’s not the fourth quarter of 2011 anymore, and currently depressed NGL prices are expected to stick around for a while.

Natural gas from the Marcellus Shale could be the answer to Pennsylvania’s energy problems, “should we choose to embrace it,” according to former Gov. Ed Rendell.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. last week clinched a trio of natural gas and oil transactions in unconventional U.S. fields that together would give the company total proceeds of $2.6 billion in cash. Among them was the sale to ExxonMobil Corp. of 58,400 acres in the Texoma Woodford Shale for $590 million in cash.

Continuing as one of the leading producers in the Marcellus Shale play, Fort Worth, TX-based Range Resources Corp. on Thursday reported increased production of natural gas, liquids and crude oil, while prices were down and initial results were in on Pennsylvania’s newly imposed natural gas impact fee. The fee’s initial charge put overall production taxes at about $13.6 million, or 23 cents/Mcfe, for the first quarter, Range said.

With the final pollution standards for the oil and natural gas industry due to be issued within days, the industry is hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. An official with the American Petroleum Institute (API) said the group hopes the rule will be “reasonable” and “achievable,” while at the same time stressing that industry does not oppose the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) efforts to reduce emissions from oil and gas operations.

As Pennsylvania worked toward overhauling environmental rules for shale development in February, the Pennsylvania Environmental Council (PEC) said “while this legislation is not perfect, the people of Pennsylvania are better served by passage of this bill now than to wait another year or longer for something stronger.”

The Maryland House of Delegates passed a 7.5% state severance tax on natural gas production on Monday, which if adopted would become the highest severance tax rate for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale.

One day after Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. agreed to sell $100 million of convertible preferred units in subsidiary Eureka Hunter Holdings LLC to an affiliate of ArcLight Capital Partners LLC, the producer announced Thursday that $58.5 million of the proceeds would be used by Eureka Hunter to acquire natural gas treating company TransTex Gas Services LP, a privately held company based in Houston.

Compressed natural gas offers the best opportunity for a majority of the nation’s drivers to be weaned off of gasoline as their primary transportation fuel, Energy Secretary Steven Chu told a House subcommittee last week.