Defer

While agreeing to defer nearly 10,000 acres, the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) finds itself as the target of strong opposition from local residents as it attempts to conduct an oil and natural gas lease sale in mid-February in central Colorado’s North Fork Valley.

As he has done with hydraulic fracturing and other environmental regulatory issues, Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead Tuesday urged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to defer to his state in regulating regional haze, which ties directly to the state’s oil, natural gas and power generation industries. Mead wrote to EPA’s air quality program director to head off the mandate of a federal implementation plan (FIP).

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has introduced a measure of uncertainty into some ownership claims for the resource rights to Marcellus Shale gas, ordering a lower court to consider whether the owner of the shale also owns the shale gas in the same manner that state law declares that coalbed methane belongs to the owner of the coal.

The Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB) Natural Gas Subcommittee should defer to state regulators — and may find that many of its objectives are already being addressed by existing programs — according to comments filed at the Department of Energy (DOE) by industry groups.

The Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB) Natural Gas Subcommittee should defer to state regulators — and may find that many of its objectives are already being addressed by existing programs — according to comments filed at the Department of Energy (DOE) by industry groups.

As long as the natural gas futures prices are “north of $5.50/Mcf on the strip,” Petrohawk Energy Corp. doesn’t plan to defer development in two big onshore plays, the Haynesville and the Eagle Ford shales, the company’s CEO said last week.

As long as the natural gas futures prices are “north of $5.50/Mcf on the strip,” Petrohawk Energy Corp. doesn’t plan to defer development in two big onshore plays, the Haynesville and the Eagle Ford shales, the company’s CEO said Tuesday.

As part of a settlement with state regulatory staff and industrial customers, Scana subsidiary South Carolina Electric & Gas (SCE&G) has agreed to defer for one year $14 million in under collected natural gas commodity purchase costs and base its winter commodity charges on recovery spread over a 24-month period, which will further increase under recoveries by $7 million during the next 12-months.

House-Senate negotiators should jettison the irreconcilable issues that threaten the passage of comprehensive energy legislation this year, a major natural gas pipeline group said.