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With just minuscule movement downward in the amount of associated natural gas being flared, North Dakota’s top oil and gas official in his latest monthly report said that the state and industry are stuck at about a 28.5-29% level of flared associated gas.

More than two years after the San Bruno, CA, natural gas transmission pipeline rupture and explosion, PG&E Corp. senior executives said the company’s bottom line is still feeling the aftershocks. The company last week reported a loss for 4Q2012 in part because of gas pipeline-related issues.

Royal Dutch Shell plc hasn’t given any indication that it will back out of plans to build a world-scale petrochemical complex in Pennsylvania, but a developer working on a smaller project in the Northeast thinks bigger isn’t always better.

EQT Corp. announced Thursday that horizontal drilling in the Marcellus Shale helped the company achieve record sales volumes overall and in the Marcellus in 2012 — the latter an 85% increase from 2011 — as it posted net income of $183.4 million for the year.

Ethane and propane spot prices during the second half of last year were near or below the bottom of their 2006-2010 range due to an overabundance of supply, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said Tuesday.

Natural gas prices in the various North American shale basins rose about 50 cents, or close to 20%, year-to-year from Jan. 1, 2012 to Jan. 1, 2013, moving mainly from the $2.80s to the $3.30s per MMBtu. At the same time, operating rigs in the same basins dropped 21%, according to surveys conducted throughout the year for NGI’s Shale Daily.

Natural gas use in power generation has risen significantly this summer because of weather-driven demand for air conditioning and rock-bottom natural gas prices, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said.

As another indicator that declining natural gas liquids (NGL) prices are dragging down some bottom lines in the midstream sector, Enbridge Energy Partners LP said Tuesday it is lowering its full-year earnings projections to the $440-470 million range from earlier guidance of $510-$550 million.

Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s stock price may have reached its bottom, an energy analyst said Friday. However, things may heat up in the coming days after activist shareholder Carl Icahn revealed late Friday that his firm now owns a 7.6% stake in the company — and he wants four board members replaced.