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The intent of continued research by the Department of Energy (DOE) into hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is “can we help drive the technology development forward,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu told a Senate committee Thursday.

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Commissioner Philip Moeller has asked the energy industry to respond by Feb. 29 on how the agency can best coordinate the natural gas and electricity markets to avoid a repeat of the severe outage that curtailed natural gas service to thousands of customers in the Southwest last winter.

Ruby Pipeline said Thursday night that based on its best available information, the return to service on its system is anticipated to occur during the gas day of Sunday (Dec. 18). The restoration plan includes ramping up operationally available capacity over the course of about three days to allow Ruby to restore the linepack necessary to schedule and deliver service at firm contracted capacity, the pipeline said. The plan had three phases: 1) Ruby would accept nominations for Sunday during the Intraday 2 nomination cycle (Cycle 4) with an estimated operationally available capacity of 330 MMcf/d; 2) Ruby would accept nominations for Monday, starting with the Evening nomination cycle (Cycle 2) with an estimated operationally available capacity of 660 MMcf/d; and 3) for Tuesday’s gas day, Ruby anticipates being able to schedule firm contracted capacity, but it depends on acceptable linepack restoration.

While environmentalists and some citizens are opposed to the use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to develop shale natural gas, experts — one of whom has studied fracking for more than 41 years — told a Senate committee the practice does not negatively impact drinking water or the environment.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Tuesday published a final rule that would allow oil and natural gas companies to use best available monitoring methods (BAMM) for reporting greenhouse gas emissions for the remainder of the year.

The Pennsylvania governor who led the state through the first years of the Marcellus Shale boom said the natural gas industry has “screwed up so badly” that it brought a tide of negative public opinion on itself.

Texas Railroad Commissioner David Porter has assembled an Eagle Ford Task Force charged with establishing best practices for development of the South Texas play based on input from across the industry and affected communities.

Pennsylvania most likely won’t see a tax or fee on shale development this summer.

Royal Dutch Shell said Monday it is planning to build a “world-scale” ethylene cracker with integrated derivative units in the Marcellus Shale in Appalachia. The cracker would process ethane from Marcellus natural gas to produce ethylene, one of the primary building blocks for petrochemicals.