Eliminate

The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved the city utility’s long-range plans to eliminate coal-fired generation from the power mix in favor of more natural gas and renewables.

The North Dakota legislature is considering legislation that would impact exploration and production (E&P) companies, including offering incentives to eliminate natural gas flaring at the wellhead.

The North Dakota legislature is considering legislation that would impact exploration and production (E&P) companies, including offering incentives to eliminate natural gas flaring at the wellhead.

The Boulder County, CO, planning commission on Tuesday proposed to offer exploration and production (E&P) operators an option of expedited oil and natural gas drilling permits in return for meeting stricter environmental standards. An industry association spokesman told NGI’s Shale Daily they favored existing state mechanisms over the county proposal.

Sugar Land, TX-based Santrol, a Fairmount Minerals company, now has five Eagle Ford Shale rail terminals to handle proppant used for hydraulic fracturing in the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas. By expanding to five Eagle Ford terminals, Santrol can ship more than one million tons of proppant per year throughout the formation, the company said. The terminals are supplying Santrol’s northern white frack sand and resin-coated proppants. “We have more terminals with more available rail car capacity than any other frack sand supplier in the region,” said Tom Bonno, Santrol terminal field service manager. The five terminals are located in: Alice, where there are two, Gardendale, Gonzales and San Antonio. All of the terminals operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Southern California Edison Co. (SCE) plans to eliminate nearly one-third of the staff at its troubled San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (Songs) along the Pacific Coast in the northern-most end of San Diego County, CA. The staff reductions had already been articulated in SCE’s pending general rate case, but with the two 2,200 MW Songs units out of service since January, the move is sure to spark more speculation about the long-term future of the plant. Both units have turned up excessive wear in part of the tubing on newly installed steam generators on both units (see Daily GPI, Feb. 7). The length of the outage has caused a re-emphasis on natural gas-fired generation in a state, which already relies on gas-fired power for the bulk of its in-state generation (see Daily GPI, Aug. 14). As part of the explanation for the staff reduction to 1,500 from the current levels above 2,100 positions, a utility spokesperson said the Songs steam generator issues “require SCE be prudent with its future spending while [the utility] and regulators review the long-term viability of the nuclear plant. The reality is that the Unit 3 reactor will not be operating for some time.”

In its final rule to eliminate harmful air pollution from oil and natural gas production, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) granted the energy industry a “reasonable” time to meet its requirements, extending the deadline for full compliance from two months to two-and-a-half years. The extension was in keeping with the Obama administration’s recent embrace of unconventional resources, particularly shale gas.

In its final rule to eliminate harmful air pollution from oil and natural gas production announced Wednesday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) granted the industry a “reasonable” time to meet its requirements, extending the deadline for full compliance from 60 days to two and a half years.

In its final rule to eliminate harmful air pollution from oil and natural gas production, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday extended the deadline for full compliance from 60 days to two-and-a-half years — 2015 — which officials said was a “reasonable” time.