Connected

Enterprise Products Partners LP is developing two refined products export facilities on the U.S. Gulf Coast to meet demand for additional refined products export capability with production from shale plays backing up the supply.

While California state officials are mulling new regulations related to oil and natural gas drilling, including hydraulic fracturing (fracking), a Stanford-connected engineering researcher/consultant has completed an updated analysis on some earlier work cautioning that fracking can induce seismic activity in geologically active areas, such as some of California’s old producing fields.

Exasperated with being at the center of a pitched debate over the safety of hydraulic fracturing (fracking), elected officials in Dimock Township, PA, voted unanimously Monday evening to decline an offer by the city of Binghamton, NY about 30 miles away, to deliver potable water supplies to some of the town’s residents.

Targeting natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGL) production from shale plays in Texas, Louisiana and Pennsylvania; and conventional production from the Gulf of Mexico, Crosstex Energy Inc. unit Crosstex Energy LP has completed and brought online two expansions of its natural gas gathering system in the Barnett Shale in North Texas and has reactivated its Eunice NGL fractionator in south central Louisiana.

BP plc was able early Thursday to shear off the damaged riser pipe connected to the Macondo well in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico but “it’s simply the beginning,” CEO Tony Hayward said in Houston.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit last Tuesday dismissed a complaint by six shippers on the TransCanada-connected Portland Natural Gas Transmission System (PNGTS) in New England, noting that they can seek a remedy through FERC’s rate-setting processes. The court action is related to lawsuits filed after the pipeline slashed its capacity by 20% in the aftermath of two other shippers filing for bankruptcy four or five years ago.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on Tuesday dismissed a complaint by six shippers on the TransCanada-connected Portland Natural Gas Transmission System (PNGTS) in New England, noting that they can seek a remedy through FERC’s rate-setting processes. The court action is related to lawsuits filed after the pipeline slashed its capacity by 20% in the aftermath of two other shippers filing for bankruptcy four or five years ago.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on Tuesday dismissed a complaint by six shippers on the TransCanada-connected Portland Natural Gas Transmission System (PNGTS) in New England, noting that they can seek a remedy through FERC’s rate-setting processes. The court action is related to lawsuits filed after the pipeline slashed its capacity by 20% in the aftermath of two other shippers filing for bankruptcy four or five years ago.

Natural gas and oil prices are no longer connected, and strong gas supplies, the anticipation of warmer winters and a weak economy provide little evidence that prices will reconnect in the near future, according to Ernst & Young (E&Y). However, regulatory pressure to decrease carbon emissions could lift gas demand and prices, E&Y said Monday in its 4Q2009 outlook for the energy industry.