Growing

Spectra Energy’s Texas Eastern Transmission LP is holding a nonbinding open season through July 31 for firm capacity on its Uniontown to Gas City (U2GC) Expansion Project, which offers shippers a new firm path from the Marcellus Shale in west Uniontown, PA, to the pipeline’s existing interconnect with Panhandle Eastern Pipeline near Gas City, IN.

Regulators with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) plan to file a legislative rule governing horizontal natural gas drilling that they hope may be adopted by state lawmakers next year.

Sunoco Logistics Partners LP plans to hold an open season soon for a new crude oil pipeline project that would carry production from the Permian Basin in West Texas to Gulf Coast markets.

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.

Williams Partners LP is holding a nonbinding open season through June 28 for expansion of its Transco pipeline to provide incremental firm service to markets in northern Georgia and Alabama by 2016.

ExxonMobil Corp. shareholders for the third year in a row turned back a shareholder proposal which would require the corporation to prepare a report on the risks associated with hydraulic fracturing (fracking). Chevron Corp. shareholders defeated a similar measure at their annual meeting, with fewer voting in favor than a year ago.

The expanded use of horizontal drilling and the advent of hydraulic fracturing helped Pennsylvania more than quadruple its natural gas production between 2009 and 2011, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Add Earth Networks, the owner of WeatherBug, as well as Telvent DTN to the growing list of forecasters that expect the 2012 hurricane season to produce fewer tropical storms than the last few years.

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.