Caused

Investigators believe the partial destruction of a metering shed at a wellhead site near the community of Tomslake, BC, was caused by a deliberate explosion and is the latest in a recent series of minor explosions in the area directed at Encana Corp. gas facilities, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said Monday.

Authorities were searching for clues to determine what caused a helicopter to crash Sunday afternoon near Houma, LA, killing eight men being transported to an oil and gas platform in the Gulf of Mexico. The Lafayette, LA-based PHI Inc. helicopter was taking the men to Shell Oil Co.’s Cougar platform from Amelia, LA, said Shell spokesperson Robin Lebovitz. Amelia is 80 miles southwest of New Orleans. A spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board said the Sikorsky S-76C helicopter is thought to have crashed about seven minutes after it took off. A PHI pilot and a copilot died in the crash along with employees of The Moreno Group’s Dynamic Industries and MMR Offshore Services Inc. Dynamic Industries and MMR perform contract work for Shell. A single survivor was being treated for severe injuries at the Ocshner Foundation Hospital in Jefferson, LA.

The U.S. Attorney Office in Utah is continuing its criminal investigation of a 27-year-old University of Utah economics student and a self-styled environmental activist who caused chaos at a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) auction of oil and natural gas leases in mid-December. “It would be premature” at this time to say what charges will be brought against Tim DeChristoper, said U.S. Attorney spokeswoman Melodie Rydalch.

El Paso expanded a location-specific Strained Operation Condition (SOC) due to drafting-caused low linepack that it had declared Saturday to a systemwide SOC Sunday. The imbalance tolerance was set initially at 10%, El Paso said, but will be reduced “if conditions do not sufficiently improve.” System linepack had fallen below 7,100 MMcf “with continued takes in excess of scheduled deliveries. Additionally, the San Juan supply basin continues to experience underperformance issues related to the cold weather with an approximate shortfall of 400 MMcf at the present time [Sunday] and [El Paso] is beginning to see underperformance in the Permian supply basin as well. Performance caps have been placed and will continue to be placed on underperforming supplies.” Its Washington Ranch storage facility was on maximum withdrawal, the pipeline said. Interruptible Storage Service was suspended Sunday until further notice.

Recently released natural gas forecasts from federal and California government energy agencies have caused an avowed opponent of U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports, Ratepayers for Affordable Clean Energy (RACE), to re-energize their campaign Tuesday with a new promotional blast contending that the West Coast doesn’t need LNG.

The bidder who caused chaos at the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Friday auction of oil and natural gas leases in southern Utah was a 27-year-old University of Utah economics student and a self-styled environmental activist.

A jump in oil and natural gas drilling, which required more rigs, which in turn created a tight supply market, has caused upstream costs to more than double in the past eight years, according to a report by IHS and Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA). In just the last six months, upstream costs rose 5%, but as the financial crisis bears down on business, prices have begun to moderate.

Slowing demand and an existing surfeit of supply pipelines haven’t caused a number of major natural gas infrastructure projects in the West to pause or even slow down in their development, a panel of project backers told the LDC Forum Rockies & West Conference Tuesday in Irvine, CA. If anything, some of the proponents said they may have new capacity in place ahead of schedule.

One of the wildfires choking Southern California caused Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) utility to close operations at its largest underground natural gas storage facility, Aliso Canyon in the Santa Susana Mountains in the far northwest end of the suburban San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles, about 35 miles from downtown. SoCalGas is the largest gas distribution utility in the nation.