Engineering

Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski last week signed an administrative order creating a lease monitoring and engineering integrity coordinating office (LMEICO) within the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR). The LMEICO is charged with coordinating the oil infrastructure oversight efforts of a multitude of state, federal and local agencies stretching from the North Slope fields to the Alyeska marine terminal at Valdez.

An engineering review has shaved about 4% off forecast costs of the proposed Mackenzie Valley Pipeline and reduced its environmental footprint, the sponsors have told Canada’s National Energy Board.

Nova Scotia’s energy policy is outdated, said Larry Hughes, a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Dalhousie University in Halifax, citing a 60% collapse in estimated natural gas reserves offshore Nova Scotia last year to only 1.35 Tcf (from an original estimate of 3.5 Tcf), the production declines at the Sable Offshore Energy Project and the industry’s turn to liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports.

Supply needs and confidence in engineering trumped public fear and environmental loathing in a landmark regulatory decision to let Alberta producers keep a major drilling target, “sour” gas laced with lethal hydrogen-sulphide.

Management consulting and engineering firm R.W. Beck Inc. raised its Henry Hub natural gas price forecast for the year to $6.40/MMBtu, a 13% increase over its forecast during the first quarter of $5.68. Higher prices are driven by high oil prices and lower-than-expected production, the firm said.

Management consulting and engineering firm R.W. Beck Inc. raised its Henry Hub natural gas price forecast for the year to $6.40/MMBtu, a 13% increase over its forecast during the first quarter of $5.68. Higher prices are driven by high oil prices and lower-than-expected production, the firm said.

A small but promising start has been made on biological engineering to eat — literally — an obstacle to producing about one-fourth of Canadian natural-gas reserves — so-called “sour” deposits laced with lethal hydrogen-sulphide.

A small but promising start has been made on biological engineering to eat — literally — an obstacle to producing about one-fourth of Canadian natural-gas reserves — so-called “sour” deposits laced with lethal hydrogen-sulphide.

The U.S. Minerals Management Service may feel sort of like a push-me pull-you animal in the next few months as state and federal officials argue about December’s proposed Eastern Gulf of Mexico federal lease Sale 181. The proposed leases provide a 15-mile buffer zone off Baldwin County, AL, but most are more than 100 miles from Florida — a region where drilling is opposed by Gov. Jeb Bush.