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The four top natural gas producing states in the Lower 48 states — Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Wyoming — are collecting severance taxes on their dry gas of between 14.7 and 18.5 cents/Mcf based on recent gas prices, according to a review of regulations and taxes by Washington, DC-based Resources for the Future’s Center for Energy Economics and Policy (CEEP).

A report published Monday by the group Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States asserts that there is a link between dozens of small earthquakes in Texas’ Barnett Shale and wastewater injection wells that support natural gas drilling.

Houston-based Crimson Exploration Inc. said its Woodbine and Eagle Ford shale programs continue to enjoy success, contribution to second quarter production that was in the upper range of the company’s guidance.

Another study is under way to look at hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and increased seismic activity in an urban oilfield sitting in a hilly southwest residential portion of Los Angeles. The producer in the crosshairs of skeptics, Plains Exploration and Production Co. (PXP), is undaunted in its efforts to try to make increased drilling activity in a mostly residential area work, according to local news reports.

Royal Dutch Shell plc will decide within the next 18 to 24 months whether to build an ethane cracker in Beaver County, PA, according to a company executive.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. is in advanced negotiations to sell all of its midstream assets, including its stake in Chesapeake Midstream Partners LP (CHKM), for more than $4 billion, a transaction that could be completed in the next few days, sources told NGI’s Shale Daily on Wednesday. The bidder is said to be private equity giant Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), which initially helped to fund the master limited partnership (MLP) and which continues to be a joint partner.

U.S. pressure pumping capacity in natural gas plays is expected to plummet by 22%, or 1.1 million hydraulic hp (hhp), between 3Q2011 and 4Q2012, according to a new analysis by PacWest Consulting Partners. In oil and liquids plays over the same period capacity is forecast to jump by 52%, or 3 million hhp.

U.S. pressure pumping capacity in natural gas plays is expected to plummet by 22%, or 1.1 million hydraulic hp (hhp), between 3Q2011 and 4Q2012, according to an analysis by PacWest Consulting Partners. In oil and liquids plays over the same period capacity is forecast to jump by 52%, or 3 million hhp.

TransCanada Corp. has won approval to start an about-face in natural gas trade between Canada and the United States that Alberta producers have called an “historic” turning point.