Dropped

As the clock was winding down for counties to sign on to the Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale impact fee, also known as Act 13, a Commonwealth Court judge pushed back the start date for portions of the law to give local governments more time to adopt its standardized zoning measures.

Spokane, WA-based Avista Utilities’ retail natural gas rates for residential customers in Ohio dropped about 5.7% as the result of periodic adjustments for changes in wholesale gas prices. The tariff was decreased from 41.8 cents/therm to 36.2 cents/therm, based on the changes approved earlier by the Idaho Public Utilities Commission (PUC), providing a decrease of about $3.46 on the average residential customer’s monthly bill. Large commercial customer rates decreased by about 7.3%. Rates are adjusted by the PUC at least once a year based on a purchased gas cost adjustment mechanism, which has shown steady decreases in recent years with the continuing fall in wholesale gas prices.

The Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) has dropped its two cents into the debate over the validity of a draft Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report on the potential link of groundwater contamination to hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in Pavillion, WY.

Chevron Corp. plans to continue to make acquisitions in unconventional plays around the world but the company likely will go it alone when it does, CEO John Watson said Friday.

Exploration in North America’s onshore remains in its earliest stages because producers are eyeing “tens of thousands” of locations for future drilling, Baker Hughes Inc. CEO Martin Craighead said Tuesday.

Another shoe dropped Tuesday in the debate over creating national subsidies for natural gas used in vehicular transportation as the large manufacturing sector expressed strong opposition to a proposal released earlier this month in the U.S. Senate (S 1863) to expand tax credits for gas transportation infrastructure and vehicles (see Daily GPI, Nov. 17). At the same time, industrial users struck back against potential widespread U.S. exports of gas.

Supermajor ExxonMobil Corp., which controls a huge portfolio of unconventional oil, gas and liquids projects across North America, on Thursday disclosed that it has increased its leasehold in the Ohio portion of the promising Utica Shale.

Natural gas utility rates in Nevada have dropped again, marking a 30% decrease since January 2009. Electric rates also decreased, and NV Energy attributed both retail utility rate drops to a combination of factors, with lower wholesale natural gas costs being a major one. With a 10.72% decrease in retail gas rates for its northern Nevada customers, the utility said the average monthly gas bill for residential customers will be more than $22 less than it was in 2009. “Adding today’s decreases will roll back total natural gas prices to 2001 levels and total electric utility prices to 2004,” NV Energy said. Factors driving the downward trend besides lower wholesale gas prices are a new state-of-art combined-cycle gas-fired generation plant, a broader, more gas-fired utility owned generation fleet and a decline in energy costs generally.

Ten years on, drilling in the Barnett Shale has expanded the economy of the 24-county region in North Texas by 38%, according to a new study that said cumulative economic benefits of the Barnett from 2001 to 2011 include $65.4 billion in gross product for the region and $80.7 billion for the state.