Bigger

As U.S. operators move onshore from the offshore, wellhead freeze-offs are becoming a bigger risk to natural gas supplies, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said Tuesday in the Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO).

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission’s (PUC) revision of distribution figures for impact fee revenue generated by Act 13 is mixed news for municipalities, with a bigger pot of revenue to divvy up, but most will get a smaller share.

Propelled by its U.S. onshore crude oil and liquids output, EOG Resources Inc. reported better-than-expected profits for the third quarter. Investors in return sent the stock price up 4.37% on Tuesday.

The nation’s energy capital will get a little bigger in the coming years as Irving, TX-based ExxonMobil Corp. expands its Houston campus, which is under development, to accommodate employees it will relocate from Fairfax, VA, and Akron, OH. Affected will be the Fairfax offices of ExxonMobil Refining and Supply Co.; ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Co.; ExxonMobil Fuels, Lubricants & Specialties Marketing Co.; the Akron-based employees of ExxonMobil Chemical Co.; and select positions from ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Co. and ExxonMobil Chemical Co. now at the company’s Baytown, TX, refinery complex. The new campus will have multiple low-rise office buildings, laboratory, conference and training centers and facilities such as child care, a wellness center and other amenities. Construction began in 2011 at the 385-acre wooded site near the intersection of I-45 and the Hardy Toll Road. The facility will accommodate about 10,000 employees who will move to the new campus in phases beginning in early 2014. Full occupancy for employees is expected by 2015.

Williams Partners LP on Monday agreed to pay $2.5 billion to buy Caiman Energy’s midstream business, giving it a much bigger footprint in the natural gas liquids (NGL) portion of the Marcellus Shale in northern West Virginia, southwestern Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio. The two companies also are teaming up to build a midstream business in the Utica Shale.

Unconventional oil and natural gas resources are an increasingly bigger piece of the pie for domestic energy companies, according to a new survey.

Penn Virginia Corp. said Tuesday it has agreed to explore a portion of the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas with an undisclosed “major oil and gas company.”

Don’t expect the energy pie to get bigger, John Hanger, the former head of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), told a Pittsburgh audience last Thursday.

Don’t expect the energy pie to get bigger, John Hanger, the former head of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), told a Pittsburgh audience Thursday.