Burned

North Dakota is “turning the corner” on the volumes of natural gas flared despite the relatively high percent of associated gas that is still being burned at the wellhead, state officials recently told NGI.

Hope was all but lost last Friday that 11 missing crew members from drilling rig Deepwater Horizon — which burned and sank in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) — would be found, although rescuers continued to search. While some feared an environmental catastrophe, oil sheen on the water appeared to be from the explosion and not a leaking well, officials said.

Three workers were burned when a fire broke out at a Chesapeake Energy Corp. drilling site in Washington County, PA, on Wednesday night.

Three workers were burned when a fire broke out at a Chesapeake Energy Corp. drilling site in Washington County, PA, on Wednesday night.

Switzerland-based Transocean Ltd. — owner of drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, which burned and sank last month in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) following an apparent well blowout — has received $481 million of an approximately $560 million in insurance proceeds it expects to receive this quarter, the company’s CFO told financial analysts Thursday.

In an update on the impact from a recent brush fire that burned through its Aliso Canyon storage field (see Daily GPI, Oct. 16), Southern California Gas (SoCalGas) said that although the fire did not cause damage to Aliso Canyon’s major facilities, it did damage power and communication infrastructure. SoCalGas said it was working to complete the necessary repairs but did not know when the field would be back in service.

“Where’s the weather?” That question must have been on a good many traders’ minds Friday as prices crashed and burned at almost all points. Besides moderate conditions dominating the weather picture almost everywhere, the cash market was negatively influenced by Thursday’s 24.7-cent screen drop and the loss of industrial load that accompanies a weekend market.

EnCana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc. settled a lawsuit brought by a New Mexico man who was burned in an explosion at the Lisbon Valley natural gas plant in 2004 (see Daily GPI, Aug. 30). Details were to be confidential. Following six days of testimony in a jury trial in U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell’s courtroom in Salt Lake City, the EnCana subsidiary on Aug. 27 was found 100% liable for Michael Melton’s injuries. The jury was determining compensatory damages and a possible punitive judgment against EnCana when the private settlement was reached late Thursday. When Melton was injured in 2004, the plant was owned by Denver-based Tom Brown Inc. (TBI), which was bought by Calgary-based EnCana Corp. (see Daily GPI, April 16, 2004). TBI’s operations were merged with those of EnCana Oil & Gas (USA) in 2005.

In the wake of a well blowout and fire that burned for months inthe oil/gas saturated area between Bakersfield and the Elk Hillspetroleum reserve, a flood of small and medium-size Canadianbackers have moved into this old production region 100 miles northof Los Angeles, betting that new significant pools of natural gascan be found with deep-drilling below 15,000 feet.