Efforts

Laser Northeast Gathering Co. LLC is abandoning its efforts to have a proposed gathering system in northeast Pennsylvania classified as a public utility with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC).

NuStar Energy LP has signed separate deals with Valero Energy Corp. and EOG Resources Inc. that will affect several shale plays. Under the Valero deal, NuStar will construct a new pipeline to transport Eagle Ford crude oil to Valero’s processing plants. Meanwhile, EOG will ship 70,000 b/d of crude oil from the Bakken, Eagle Ford and other shale plays by train to NuStar’s terminal at St. James, LA, and will add 360,000 bbl of storage capacity there. NuStar’s share of construction costs should be between $30 million and $40 million.

The House pipeline safety reauthorization bill’s Achilles Heel is that it grandfathers aging natural gas pipeline and distribution facilities from having to install new technology — automatic and remote-controlled shut-off valves or excess flow valves — to prevent explosions or quickly bring them under control once they have occurred, a California congresswoman told a House subcommittee Friday.

As West Virginia takes up the issue of Marcellus Shale regulatory reform, officials are also continuing their efforts to attract at least one thermal cracker facility to the state.

As West Virginia takes up the issue of Marcellus Shale regulatory reform, officials are also continuing their efforts to attract at least one thermal cracker facility to the state.

Shell Oil Co. last week launched a public relations campaign to showcase its onshore natural gas drilling efforts, followed a day later by ExxonMobil Corp., which on Thursday unveiled a website to “give context to the growth of natural gas resources in the United States.”

One day after Shell Oil Co. launched a public relations campaign to showcase its onshore natural gas drilling efforts, ExxonMobil Corp. on Thursday unveiled a website to “give context to the growth of natural gas resources in the United States.”

Despite the promise of a veto from Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, Pennsylvania lawmakers are pushing to get a tax or fee on Marcellus Shale development included in the state’s fiscal 2012 budget, which is due at the end of June.

More than three weeks after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) began diverting the Mississippi River into the Atchafalaya Basin in Louisiana, the number of shut-in oil and gas wells — as well as the floodwaters — are beginning to recede.