Cuts

Responding to a $1 billion budget shortfall attributed to the crude oil price crash, North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple on Monday ordered across-the-board cuts for state agencies and dipped into the state’s reserve funds.

Prices for natural gas failed to strengthen throughout most of 2015, but the production decline registered year/year in November offers a sign, albeit small, that capacity may be shrinking as the year draws to an end.

More than 800 employees lost their jobs this week, with about 640 in Oklahoma City alone.

In an effort to revive his plan to levy new severance taxes on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and natural gas liquids (NGL), Ohio Gov. John Kasich has proposed giving 25% of the tax proceeds to 33 counties in the state’s Appalachian region, home to Ohio’s Utica Shale drilling.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is trying to block a Senate vote on President Obama’s pick to head the Department of Energy as a protest to proposed budget cuts to a nuclear processing facility in his home state.

After three years of exponential growth, the Marcellus Shale is showing signs of plateauing this year.

Encana Corp. is curtailing North American natural gas supply by up to 600 MMcf/d this year through cuts to capital investments and by shutting in production, the Calgary-based producer said Friday. The company already has taken action to “slow down or curtail” output from existing wells equal to 250 MMcf/d, said CEO Randy Eresman.

In his State of the State address on Wednesday Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn urged lawmakers to eliminate the state’s natural gas utility tax.

Washington state regulatory staff said it plans to recommend deep cuts in Puget Sound Energy’s (PSE) proposed $182 million natural gas and electric general rate increase request. The staff is recommending a total increase of a little more than $40 million annually to the three-member Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC). Bellevue, WA-based PSE proposed increasing retail gas utility rates by $30 million annually and electric rates by $152 million. Public comments are still being taken by the UTC, which will hold hearings on the rate case Feb. 1 and 15. The proposed rate changes are slated to take effect May 1.