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Even with a multi-billion-dollar natural gas gathering and processing infrastructure buildout ongoing, North Dakota is not likely to greatly reduce the volumes of gas being flared as an offshoot of its accelerated oil boom, according to an analysis released Thursday by RBN Energy LLC.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper said Wednesday the state hopes to avoid a lengthy court battle with the City of Longmont over newly enacted natural gas and oil drilling regulations, which challenge the state’s authority to regulate energy operations.

Sempra Energy’s San Diego Gas and Electric Co. (SDG&E) and the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) jointly released a positive outlook for summer energy supplies even with the continued outage of the 2,200 MW San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (Songs). Earlier in the spring there were concerns about strained natural gas supplies and other energy infrastructure due to the absence of Songs’ baseload power in Southern California (see Daily GPI, May 7). Besides bringing back in service two mothballed natural gas-fired generation units along the Southern California coast at Huntington Beach, SDG&E’s high-voltage Sunrise Powerlink transmission line is expected to be in service soon, as well as a 230kV transmission loop in southern Orange County, Barre-Del Amo and Barre-Ellis No. 2 lines. SDG&E and CAISO still characterized this summer as “challenging” from a power supply perspective, noting that if the region experiences a prolonged heat wave, calls for conservation will be inevitable. More than 283 MW of new generation capacity came online the second half of 2011, and CAISO expects another 923 MW to be added this year by July 1, but most of its if renewable-based wind and solar projects that are intermittent and require backup from gas-fired and hydroelectric sources.

Even if all drilling rigs were removed from the northern Marcellus Shale region and current drilling ceased, dry gas production in northeastern Pennsylvania would continue growing for 16 months, thanks to a large inventory of nonproducing wells and high initial production (IP) rates, Bentek Energy LLC said in a market note. “In fact, if zero rigs were operating there, production could still grow from approximately 4.1 Bcf/d today to 5.4 Bcf/d by September 2013, a 31% increase that results exclusively from working off the existing backlog of 1,000 nonproducing wells in the region,” the firm said. The assumptions in its analysis are that the 12-month average completion rate is carried forward and the average IP rate in the area is 6,500 Mcf/d. A “typical” Marcellus decline curve is also assumed. Potential pipeline capacity constraints were not included in the analysis.

U.S. businesses and consumers are becoming more frugal about their energy consumption, even as the economy slowly begins to recover, according to a new survey from the Deloitte Center for Energy Solutions.

U.S. energy independence won’t be achievable until at least 2030, even with a renewed focus on domestic energy resources, energy infrastructure and unconventionals, according to more than two-thirds of the energy executives responding to a new survey conducted by KPMG Global Energy Institute (GEI).

Even with a continuing slow recovery in the regional economy, natural gas demand is expected to grow steadily at just under 1% annually during the next 10 years, with gas used for power generation expected to lead the growth, according to the 2012 Gas Outlook released Saturday by the Northwest Gas Association (NWGA).

Even with the intense media coverage of of hydraulic fracturing (fracking), most people haven’t heard about it or are unfamiliar with the practice, according to a nationwide poll conducted in March by the University of Texas at Austin (UT). Of the one-third familiar with fracking “support outweighed opposition, 48% to 36%.”

Even with the intense media coverage of of hydraulic fracturing (fracking), most people haven’t heard about it or are unfamiliar with the practice, according to a nationwide poll conducted in March by the University of Texas at Austin (UT). Of the one-third familiar with fracking “support outweighed opposition, 48% to 36%.”