Fired

In one of the three ongoing post-San Bruno natural gas pipeline explosion regulatory cases, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) fired back at one of its strongest critics: the safety staff at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).

Backers of the proposed High Prairie Pipeline for taking away burgeoning Bakken Shale play oil supplies fired two shots Tuesday in an attempt to untangle their 450-mile, 16-inch diameter pipeline project. They contracted with an anchor shipper for the line and filed a second complaint with a federal agency against Enbridge Energy Partners LP for blocking an interconnection of the proposed pipeline.

Growing use of gas-fired power plants in the United States is helping, to a large extent, to drive down the country’s emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Since 2006, the United States has led the world in cutting CO2 emissions, the agency said recently.

The U.S. shale gas boom has put pressure on the natural gas industry nationally to upgrade and build new pipeline capacity to service what are anticipated to be growing markets for gas-fired electric generation and use of gas as a transportation fuel, the CEO at Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) Tony Earley said Monday in advance of the PG&E annual shareholders meeting in San Francisco.

Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s stock price jumped on Monday after the company secured a $3 billion term loan and CEO Aubrey McClendon expressed confidence in the company’s ability to complete planned property sales this year to bridge an estimated $10 billion funding gap. In addition, an estimated $1 billion volumetric production payment (VPP) in the Eagle Ford Shale has been sidelined in favor of more noncore asset sales.

A group of independent producers have fired off a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar challenging and contesting recent claims by the Obama administration involving oil and natural gas production on public lands.

Officials with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Thursday fired off a letter to the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) about its intention to regulate hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

FERC Wednesday issued a favorable environmental assessment (EA) of National Fuel Gas Supply Corp.’s Line N 2012 expansion project that would increase the takeaway capacity from the Marcellus Shale basin to serve Northeast markets.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Thursday issued a conditional veto of legislation that would have permanently prohibited wells in the state from being hydraulically fractured (fracked). However, the Republican governor issued a one-year moratorium on the well stimulation technique and recommended that state lawmakers take up the bill again and revise it.