Economies

Although already under environmental appeal, Utah state officials issued a permit the last week in March to a Delaware-based company to a begin a large oil shale extraction project that eventually could cover up to 1,500 acres in the Uintah Basin. It could end up being one of the largest oil shale mining operations in the state.

Cheap natural gas, courtesy of shale plays, is bringing industry back to the United States, growing economies along the Gulf Coast, in the Northeast and elsewhere. But it has also made holding gas transportation capacity a more dicey prospect for end-users, and there is a risk that some of the energy industry’s risk management muscle could atrophy while on a diet of low prices and low volatility.

Cheap natural gas, courtesy of shale plays, is bringing industry back to the United States, growing economies along the Gulf Coast, in the Northeast and elsewhere. But it has also made holding gas transportation capacity a more dicey prospect for end-users, and there is a risk that some of the energy industry’s risk management muscle could atrophy while on a diet of low prices and low volatility.

While North Dakota has ridden the shale boom to the nation’s lowest unemployment and a rush of activity for local economies, residents with long memories are cautious, having experienced boom-bust cycles in the oil patch in the past.

Natural gas demand in developed economies won’t return to 2008 levels until at least 2012, with liquefied natural gas (LNG) capacity growth and the North American shale “revolutions” threatening to temper demand longer, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said last Wednesday.

Natural gas demand in developed economies won’t return to 2008 levels until at least 2012, with liquefied natural gas (LNG) capacity growth and the North American shale “revolutions” threatening to temper demand longer, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Wednesday.

Kerr-McGee Corp. cited the “continued slowdown in the U.S. and worldwide economies” and lower oil and gas production as reasons that its second quarter net income was down 19%, standing at $175 million, or $1.71 per diluted share, compared with $217 million, or $2.13 per share for the same period of 2000. Last year’s second quarter included $107 million, or $1.02 per share, in special charges. No special charges were recorded for this year’s second quarter.

Recent uncertainties and declines in the economies of emergingmarket countries have taken their toll in recent weeks on the stockprices of companies with significant foreign investment exposure.In the natural gas industry that includes Enron Corp. which chosethis time period to pledge over $3 billion to additional foreigninvestments.