Future

Noting that the state’s climate change mediation goals call for investing billions of dollars in energy efficiency, California regulators on Thursday approved $65.9 million to conduct five pilot energy efficiency programs using utility ratepayer-supported financial mechanisms. Pilot programs will be phased in beginning in the fourth quarter.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Friday issued long-awaitedproposed rulesfor greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for new power plants, leaving gas-fired plants mostly unaffected but making construction of new coal-fired plants problematic.

Encana Corp., one of North America’s natural gas stalwarts, may be ready to slim down and sell some of its estimable dry gas portfolio to ready for the future, CEO Doug Suttles signaled on Thursday.

As part of a “U.S. Century” fueled by global shale gas dominance, domestic natural gas prices will rise and volatility will return in the next three to five years, a JP Morgan executive told participants at the LDC Gas Forum Mid-Continent in Chicago Tuesday. Colin Fenton did add the caveat that the gas volatility will not be the same as global oil prices, however.

The House Natural Resources Committee Wednesday voted out a bipartisan bill that would prohibit the Department of Interior from enforcing federal hydraulic fracturing (fracking) regulations.

With the proceeds counted from the sale of its Permian Basin acreage earlier this year, Frisco, TX-based Comstock Resources Inc. is squarely focused on the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas, where it is drilling longer-lateral wells for less money in fewer days and looking for bolt-on acreage acquisitions. The Haynesville Shale will have to wait.

The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District (MWCD) has agreed to sell more water to Antero Resources for oil and gas drilling in the Utica Shale.

A preliminary analysis released last Friday by state and federal energy officials has recast doubts about the future of a $4 billion project that involves what would be California’s first commercial carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility slated for the state’s oil patch in the southern end of the central valley west of Bakersfield.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) late last Friday filed its second annual report to state regulators summarizing its progress on current and future work aimed at improving its natural gas system’s safety as mandated by a state law (SB 705) passed in 2011 in response to the 2010 San Bruno transmission pipeline failure. Under its pipeline safety enhancement plan, PG&E told the California Public Utilities Commission that it has strength-tested 456 miles of its 6,750-mile gas transmission pipeline system. The utility said its has installed 76 automated shutoff valves on critical parts of the system while validating the safe operating pressure for the entire system. In addition, the utility said it is pursuing an internationally recognized gas safety certification for its system called “Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 55”; it also has established an employee-led company wide, grassroots safety committee to promote safe work habits, best practices and open communications; and it has a new Corrective Action Program to collect and act on gas system issues and ideas though a central internal company processing center. In addition, PG&E said its ongoing gas safety plan overall has been reviewed by several outside parties and includes input from employees at all levels of the PG&E gas operations organization.