Comes

The Obama administration has reached an all-time low when it comes to energy policy, the chairman of the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) said last Wednesday.

As the federal fiscal year comes to a close Friday, oil and gas leasing activity in the Rockies states declined markedly, according to the Denver-based Western Energy Alliance (WEA), a trade association for more than 400 exploration and production (E&P) companies. With the exception of North Dakota, all Rockies states leasing activity has declined since 2008, WEA said.

The Obama administration has reached an all-time low when it comes to energy policy, the chairman of the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) said Wednesday.

As the federal fiscal year comes to a close Friday, oil and gas leasing activity in the Rockies states declined markedly, according to the Denver-based Western Energy Alliance (WEA), a trade association for more than 400 exploration and production (E&P) companies. With the exception of North Dakota, all Rockies states leasing activity has declined since 2008, WEA said.

The Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) San Bruno pipeline rupture last year was caused by none of the usual suspects when it comes to high-pressure natural gas transmission pipeline failures, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) made clear in its final report adopted by the five-member panel in Washington, DC, Tuesday (see Daily GPI, Aug. 31).

Mountainview Energy Ltd. announced it intends to acquire a 20% interest in approximately 67,000 gross acres (about 13,400 net acres) in the Bakken/Three Forks Shale in a stock deal valued at about C$21.5 million. The parcels are located in the Medicine Lake Prospect, which is in Divide County, ND, and Richland, Roosevelt and Sheridan counties, MT. The acquisition will increase Mountainview’s position in the Williston Basin to approximately 25,400 net acres.

While the role of natural gas-fired generation seems pretty clear when it comes to increased reliance on wind energy for large-scale electricity supplies, the same cannot be said for utility-scale solar projects, despite current bullish pronouncements from the government and renewable energy sectors.

PacifiCorp proposes to nearly cut in half the proportion of its electricity that comes from coal-fired generators, along with building a new 637 MW natural gas-fired plant in Utah during the next 10 years, according to a revised integrated resource plan (IRP) submitted to Idaho regulators by the company’s Rocky Mountain Power utility. The Idaho Public Utilities Commission will take comments on the IRP, including its plan to cut reliance on coal from its current 62.5% portion of the PacifiCorp portfolio to 36.3% by 2020. For gas-fired generation, the 637 MW Lake Side generation plant is planned to be in place in Utah County by mid-2014, and bids for another gas-fired plant are called for late this year for a facility that can be online in 2016. Over the next 10 years, the proportion of generation from natural gas is expected to increase to 25.5% from its current 11.7% level.

While the majority of U.S. primary energy production comes from fossil fuel resources, the bulk of the energy tax breaks have gone to support renewable fuels in the past two years, according to a new analysis by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).