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The early days of the Utica Shale are proving to be far more competitive than the early days of its cousin, the Marcellus Shale, the head of a major midstream player told NGI’s Shale Daily.

In Appalachia, gas from the Marcellus Shale is pushing out in all directions. Producer demand for takeaway capacity is great, prompting Spectra to announce this week its Northeast Expansion Transmission (NEXT) project to serve markets in Eastern Canada and its Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) project to meet New England demand with gas from Pennsylvania.

With one transaction, Chesapeake Midstream Partners LP (CHKM) has become the “biggest gathering system in the Marcellus Shale,” CEO J. Mike Stice said Thursday.

The world shale gas industry has undergone big changes industrywide in just a year’s time and it still faces a “period of great uncertainty and policy challenges,” an energy expert said last week.

The world shale gas industry has undergone big changes industrywide in just a year’s time and it still faces a “period of great uncertainty and policy challenges,” an energy expert said Tuesday.

The promise that shale natural gas holds to transform Ohio’s economy — and that of the nation — is too great to dismiss because of “misconceptions” about hydraulic fracturing (fracking), Gov. John Kasich said Thursday.

Government officials, environmentalists and industry representatives carried the debate on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to California’s south-central coast last Thursday in Santa Barbara County, and while there was no across-the-board agreement, local elected officials did voice surprise that fracking is a potential issue in their county where offshore oil/gas development has had a long-standing love-hate relationship with residents.

The boom in shale gas and the increased use of natural gas will solve some, but not all, of the world’s problems with energy use, according to an essay, one of two articles on the world impact of shale gas in a recent issue of the British weekly news magazine, The Economist.

Calling development of the Marcellus Shale play “a great opportunity” for New York, the Public Policy Institute of New York State Inc. (PPI) said a scenario where 500 gas wells were drilled every year in the state would create 62,620 jobs, $2.7 billion in added value and $1 billion in local, state and federal tax revenue.