Gathering

EQT Gathering LLC’s request for a limited certificate to provide jurisdictional compression service through the nonjurisdictional Derry Compressor Station planned for Westmoreland County, PA, has been given the green light by FERC. Commissioners also approved a waiver of all filing and reporting requirements that would otherwise apply as a result of EQT providing interstate service.

As natural gas production steadily increases in the Utica Shale and a new joint venture (JV) emerges to handle midstream services, the business model for Dominion East Ohio (DEO), whose operations run through the heart of the shale play, is forecast to change in some areas, but not in others.

In a bid to loosen the natural gas capacity constraints that are plaguing the Marcellus Shale region and wreaking havoc on associated pricing points, upgrades in the form of pipeline loops and compression upgrades are coming online virtually every week.

Oneok Partners LP said it plans to invest $440 million in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin to buy a natural gas liquids (NGL) processing facility and to upgrade related infrastructure.

Thanks to the Marcellus Shale, Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. recently completed the best quarter in its history on an operational and financial basis. The company is adding a sixth rig in the play as it anticipates multiple infrastructure projects to come online in the months ahead, increasing the ability to get its gas to markets.

Denver-based SM Energy Co. is marketing all of its properties in the Anadarko Basin, including its Granite Wash interests. The sale of the gas-weighted assets is part of normal high-grading activities, the company said Wednesday. Proceeds could be spent in the Permian Basin or in the Eagle Ford Shale, analysts speculated Wednesday.

Coming out of its coldest April and wettest May ever recorded, North Dakota’s latest oil and natural gas statistics show the amounts of oil transported by rail shot up to 75% in April while new wells connected set a record at 185. Overall, April oil/gas production was down compared to March, but the daily averages set all-time records on a preliminary basis (793,249 b/d and 846 MMcf/d).

As one of the hottest growing hydrocarbon areas in North America, North Dakota’s legislature has been immersed this year with various proposals to deal with oil and natural gas-related issues. So far, the stakeholders embroiled in the debate are not sure which, if any, bills will make it through the legislative meat grinder.

Devon Energy Corp. is pulling out of a voluntary natural gas well emissions data gathering program run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claiming the data has been “irresponsibly and inaccurately used to justify costly regulations” for unconventional drilling.