Fuels

Honeywell UOP LLC process technology unit and engineering/contractor Black & Veatch (BV) formed an alliance Tuesday to develop liquefied natural gas (LNG) production facilities for supplying the rail, vehicle and marine transportation sectors.

Total natural gas used for power generation in the United States was down 14% between January and July 2013 compared with the same seven month period in 2012, due primarily to higher gas prices relative to coal prices this year, according to a report issued Wednesday by the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Although President Obama and the participants in a town hall meeting at Binghamton University in New York on Friday devoted most of their discourse to education, energy was mentioned once, with the president acknowledging the rise of natural gas but calling for further investment in alternative energy not derived from fossil fuels.

A coalition of seven conservation groups has filed a lawsuit in federal court against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) allocation of more than 800,000 acres of federal lands in three western states to potential oil shale and tar sands development.

A Tulsa, OK-based synfuel technology company has entered a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with an unnamed shale gas exploration and production (E&P) company to study the feasibility of a plant for turning natural gas into diesel.

Natural gas and oil production is vulnerable to decreasing water availability and operations in Arctic Alaska to thawing permafrost, both of which are potential impacts of climate change, according to a report issued Thursday by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

Seal Beach, CA-based Clean Energy Fuels Corp. has announced a $20 million partnership with compressed natural gas (CNG) firm Mansfield Energy Corp. And the company reported 1Q2013 results that were still showing red ink, but much less of a loss than reported for the same period last year.

Legislation to extend tax credits that support the conversion of conventional vehicles to run on cleaner fuels, such as natural gas, is awaiting the signature of Oklahoma’s governor after passage by the state House. The incentive, which covers about half the cost of converting a typical vehicle and three-quarters of the cost of establishing an alternative fueling station, will be extended until 2020. The incentives are expected to cost the state — a major natural gas producer — $1.5-2 million per year.

A unit of privately held Beaumont, TX-based Stabilis Energy LLC sees a growth market for the use of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in transportation in U.S. oilfields.