Effective

Houston’s Newfield Exploration Co. has signed two separate agreements totaling $308 million that will add about 70,000 net acres to its unconventional oil and gas holdings in Utah’s Uinta Basin.

Southern California Gas did not extend a two-day high-linepack OFO beyond Friday.

Natural gas wells in Texas would have to be at least 1,200 feet from public schools if a bill filed Monday in the state legislature becomes law, but a group advocating the interests of Fort Worth neighborhoods says it wants wells to be one mile or more from the schoolhouse.

CIG declared a Strained Operating Condition (SOC) effective Monday until further notice. Service area forecasts indicate subzero temperatures, CIG said, “resulting in planned maximum withdrawals from storage.” See the bulletin board for details on SOC conditions.

Due to continuing high linepack in all segments, Westcoast has implemented a systemwide OFO setting the tolerance for positive daily imbalances at the minimum of 10% or 500 GJ.

Citing cold forecasts, MRT issued a System Protection Warning (SPW) effective Wednesday for all northbound volumes; see the bulletin board for SPW conditions.

Due to cold weather in its service area, MRT said it will issue a System Protection Warning (SPW) for northbound flows effective Friday until further notice; see the bulletin board for SPW conditions.

In its final action for 2010, the Nevada Public Utilities Commission (PUC) approved rate changes effective last Saturday for NV Energy’s northern utility operations. As a result, retail natural gas utility rates increased at the start of the new year and electric rates decreased. The overall revenue increase to the company is $2.7 million for natural gas and, thanks to other fixed monthly customer charges, $13.1 million for electric.

A signature from outgoing New York Gov. David Paterson is all that is required for a temporary ban on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to become effective in the Empire State following the New York State Assembly’s approval of the measure on Monday.