Exports

FERC has approved two orders that allow the El Paso Natural Gas and Kinder Morgan Texas pipeline systems to increase natural gas exports to northern Mexico.

Japanese chemical manufacturer Kuraray Co. Ltd. announced Tuesday that it plans to take advantage of an abundance of shale gas in the United States and will build a $10.1 million facility in Texas to produce plastic.

All the things that North America’s natural gas operators are doing today to gin up demand for the fuel here and abroad — liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, increased use as a transportation fuel, petrochemical facility expansions, power plant conversions from coal to gas and more — already are being investigated by ExxonMobil Corp. today, an executive said last week.

All the things that North America’s natural gas operators are doing today to gin up demand for the fuel here and abroad — liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, increased use as a transportation fuel, petrochemical facility expansions, power plant conversions from coal to gas and more — already are being investigated by ExxonMobil Corp. today, an executive said Thursday.

Chevron U.S.A. Inc. and EQT Corp. marketing unit EQT Energy LLC have stepped up to be anchor shippers on Texas Eastern Transmission LP’s Texas Eastern Appalachia to Market (TEAM) 2014 expansion, Spectra Energy Corp.’s Texas Eastern said Thursday. The project is intended to deliver more Appalachian shale gas to markets in the Northeast, Midwest and southern United States.

Houston-based Contango Oil & Gas Co., better known as a Gulf Coast player, on Monday joined with some financially savvy partners to invest up to $380 million over the next five years in Encana Corp.’s holdings in the Jonah field, one of the largest natural gas fields in the United States and the third largest oilfield in Wyoming.

High hopes for budding overseas exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) dominate an ambitious economic growth forecast made last week by British Columbia Premier Christy Clark. Of C$25 billion (U.S. dollar at par) in investment anticipated by Clark within 10 years, her Liberal government is relying on LNG for C$18 billion or 72% of the total.

High hopes for budding overseas exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) dominate an ambitious economic growth forecast made Monday by British Columbia Premier Christy Clark. Of C$25 billion (U.S. dollar at par) in investment anticipated by Clark within 10 years, her Liberal government is relying on LNG for C$18 billion or 72% of the total.

The Interior Department’s first assessment of the shale potential of Alaska’s North Slope found the potential for up to 2 billion bbl of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and 80 Tcf of undiscovered, technically recoverable gas, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). “We looked under the entire North Slope of Alaska,” said USGS Director Marcia McNutt, who called it a landmark study. The results will enable industry to make “good seismic decisions,” will guide their investments, said Anne Castle, assistant secretary of water and science. Alaska’s shale resources “hold great promise,” but production has never been attempted due to the infrastructure challenges, Castle noted. Three source rocks of the Alaska North Slope were assessed in the study: the Triassic Shublik Formation, the lower part of the Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous Kingak Shale, and the Cretaceous pebble shale unit-Hue Shale, according to USGS. It said those shale formations are known to have generated oil and gas that migrated into conventional accumulations, including the Prudhoe Bay field. But the shales also likely retain oil and gas that did not migrate. If the shale gas should be developed, it’s remains an open questions as to whether it could make its way to the United States, which lacks pipelines and/or a West Coast liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal for the gas to be delivered. The nation’s sole export terminal, located in Kenai, AK, exports LNG to Asian markets.