Environmental

Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal, who has been quietly working to assuage landowners, environmental interests and the state’s lucrative coalbed methane (CBM) developers, said he wants to now encourage the state legislature to give agencies more flexibility to apply site-specific permitting. The state, already months behind in processing requests for the industry’s potential 51,000-well sprawl in the northeast Wyoming, has been further stymied by recent budget and staff cuts.

Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal, who has been quietly working to assuage landowners, environmental interests and the state’s lucrative coalbed methane (CBM) developers, said he wants to now encourage the state legislature to give agencies more flexibility to apply site-specific permitting. The state, already months behind in processing requests for the industry’s potential 51,000-well sprawl in the northeast Wyoming, has been further stymied by recent budget and staff cuts.

Consultants at Energy and Environmental Analysis Inc. (EEA) expect gas storage levels to drop to near record lows at 600 Bcf by the end of the traditional withdrawal season under normal weather conditions because of an alarming decline in U.S. natural gas producing capacity.

Consultants at Energy and Environmental Analysis Inc. (EEA) are predicting that given normal weather, natural gas storage levels will drop to near record lows at 600 Bcf by the end of the traditional withdrawal season because of an alarming decline in U.S. natural gas producing capacity. However, an oil and gas engineer with the Energy Information Administration said he isn’t buying any “sky is falling” scenarios. He said productive capacity is very near where it has been historically.

Over protests by several environmental groups, BNP Petroleum Corp. has received permission to drill two new natural gas wells in the ecologically sensitive Padre Island National Seashore of Texas.

Despite high storage levels and falling gas futures prices, consultants at Energy and Environmental Analysis Inc. (EEA) are convinced that low gas production and inadequate drilling will pressure Henry Hub prices up to $5.35/MMBtu on average next year and in 2004, given normal weather. The 12-month strip of futures prices currently is about $1.50 less than that.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has awarded a preliminary determination (PD) on non-environmental issues to Natural Gas Pipeline Co. of America (NGPL) to convert 10.7 Bcf of cushion gas into working gas at its North Lansing storage field in Harrison County, TX, in order to raise the firm late-season deliverability of the field.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has awarded a preliminary determination (PD) on non-environmental issues to Natural Gas Pipeline Co. of America (NGPL) to convert 10.7 Bcf of cushion gas into working gas at its North Lansing storage field in Harrison County, TX, in order to raise the firm late-season deliverability of the field.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has awarded Texas Eastern Transmission (Tetco) a preliminary determination (PD) on non-environmental issues for a pipeline looping and compression expansion of its mainline system to serve expanding natural gas markets in Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina.