Everything

Increased interstate cooperative projects on everything from bigger oil production to modernization of the natural gas pipeline infrastructure are all part of a 10-year energy plan unveiled Sunday by the Western Governors’ Association (WGA) at the conclusion of its three-day annual meeting in Park City, UT.

Industry experts said they were disappointed by the Utica Shale oil production figures for 2012 released Thursday by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), but they believe a clearer picture is beginning to emerge of where the play’s sweet spots for oil are located.

Slowing economic growth in China pushed nearly all equity markets south last week, with energy caught in a sell-off of “everything commodity-related,” but a flat natural gas rig count, combined with an eroding storage overhang, provide opportunities for U.S. gas prices and related operators to trade higher this year, said BMO Capital Markets Dan McSpirit and Phillip Jungwirth.

With increasing national news media and regulatory attention and despite ExxonMobil’s assurances that everything is under control at a plugged oil spill near Little Rock, AR, hardened opposition and skeptical stakeholders in the high-stakes business of finding markets for Western Canada’s heavy tar sands-based crude oil are raising red flags, as evidenced in California this week.

Canada’s Duvernay Shale has the potential to become one of the “most attractive liquids-rich plays” in North America, according to Wood Mackenzie analysts, who point to ExxonMobil Corp.’s decision this month to pay $3.1 billion for one of the play’s biggest developers as affirmation.

Canada’s Duvernay Shale has the potential to become one of the “most attractive liquids-rich plays” in North America, according to Wood Mackenzie analysts, who point to ExxonMobil Corp.’s decision this month to pay $3.1 billion for one of the play’s biggest developers as affirmation.

Already planted firmly on the side of states’ rights advocates in the debate about regulating hydraulic fracturing (fracking), Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead said Thursday he thinks the Republican Party platform and presidential candidate Mitt Romney recognize that the states must play a key role in the nation’s energy policy.

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead has extended an olive branch to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials in the dispute over preliminary results from two federally managed groundwater test wells near Pavillion, WY, and the shallow hydraulic fracturing (fracking) of natural gas wells that dominate that portion of the state (see Shale Daily, Dec. 9, 2011).

A Pennsylvania state Senate committee passed amended impact fee legislation on Monday that returned an impact fee to the bill, added environmental safeguards and changed the way the bill would govern local ordinances over oil and gas drilling.