Effort

The chief of Imperial Oil Ltd., which has been spearheading an effort to build the Mackenzie Gas Project (MGP) to transport natural gas from Canada’s Arctic region, isn’t ready to throw in the towel despite the slump in prices and pressure from shale gas resources. It’s all about the long term, he said.

In an effort to expand its production of olefins, Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LP plans to build a massive 1-hexene plant at its Cedar Bayou Chemical Complex in Baytown, TX.

California lawmakers are rekindling an effort that died last year to place chemical disclosure requirements on oil and natural gas producers that use hydraulic fracturing (fracking) well stimulation.

In an effort to give analysts and industry more comprehensive information on the relationship between natural gas inventory changes and types of storage facilities, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) — starting with the March 22 edition of the Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report — is providing breakouts of inventory levels at salt cavern and nonsalt cavern facilities for the weekly estimates of working gas in underground natural gas storage inventories in the Producing Region, defined as Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.

In an effort to give analysts and industry more comprehensive information on the relationship between natural gas inventory changes and types of storage facilities, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) — starting with the March 22 edition of the Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report — is providing breakouts of inventory levels at salt cavern and nonsalt cavern facilities for the weekly estimates of working gas in underground natural gas storage inventories in the Producing Region, defined as Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.

A legislator in the Pennsylvania General Assembly has introduced a bill designed to encourage the use of natural gas vehicles (NGVs) and the construction of fueling stations to support them within the state that his home to the heart of the Marcellus Shale.

In response to continued low natural gas prices and “as an effort to help bring U.S. natural gas supply and demand into better balance,” Chesapeake Energy Corp. said late Tuesday it has now upped its curtailments to about 1 Bcf/d of gross operated gas output, or about 1.5% of U.S. Lower 48 gas production, primarily in the Haynesville and Barnett shale plays.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. said Tuesday it will fund an effort by 3M to design, manufacture and market a “broad” portfolio of compressed natural gas (CNG) tanks for use in all sectors of the U.S. transportation market. According to the partners, the fuel tank on a CNG vehicle is the most expensive single component and less expensive tanks would enable CNG to be more widely adopted as an alternative vehicle fuel source.

With the wave of new shale gas supplies flooding the U.S. market and pushing prices to nearly 10-year lows, the natural gas industry is actively searching out new markets and customers to increase demand, panelists told an audience at the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association’s Winter Meeting in Champion, PA, on Tuesday.