Deciding

The Mancos Shale plays in the Piceance and San Juan basins in Colorado and New Mexico are a potential gold mine of low-cost natural gas supplies, according to an executive from Rapid City, SD-based Black Hills Corp., who spoke Wednesday to Wall Street analysts at the J.P. Morgan SMid Cap Conference.

A fourth company is considering plans to build an ethane cracker in West Virginia, according to state Commerce Secretary Keith Burdette.

Current and former officials in the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) warn that companies hoping to build an ethane cracker in the state could have difficulty getting the necessary permits if they choose to build in areas that don’t meet federal air quality standards.

No hearings have been set as yet for deciding the fate of several natural gas safety bills alive in the California legislature. They will wait for further committee hearings in mid-August when state lawmakers return from a month-long recess that begins Friday. Meanwhile, a number of other states are considering fracking and/or pipeline safety legislative proposals, including Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Texas.

While no hearings have been set as of yet for deciding the fate of several natural gas safety bills alive in the California legislature, all indicators point to the picture becoming clearer following mid-August committee hearings, when state lawmakers return from a month-long recess that begins Friday.

No hearings have been set as yet for deciding the fate of several natural gas safety bills alive in the California legislature. They will wait for further committee hearings in mid-August when state lawmakers return from a month-long recess that begins Friday.

Most points stayed close to flat Tuesday in a cash market that seemed to have trouble deciding how to respond to varying weather and futures influences.

Deciding to go out with a bang on expiration, traders on Wednesday pushed December natural gas futures to a low of $7.180 before it closed out at $7.203, down 35.4 cents from Tuesday’s close. Even more interesting was the fact that the incoming prompt-month contract — January 2008 — dropped below $7.500 for the first time since summer 2005 to close Wednesday at $7.486, down 33.1 cents.

Sempra Energy is deciding whether it will file a counter suit in Mexico against a real estate broker who has accused the company of colluding with Baja California government officials in an “appalling abuse of power and corruption.”