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States increasingly will push for more disclosure of the hydraulic fracturing process.

Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. and privately held Eclipse Resources I LP have struck a joint operating agreement covering a leasehold owned by both companies in the Marcellus and Utica shales in Monroe County, OH.

A petition by Southern Natural Gas (SNG) pipeline to amend a stipulation and agreement requiring it to file a new rate case by the end of February has come under attack at FERC.

Cheniere Energy Partners LP unit Sabine Pass Liquefaction LLC and Bechtel Oil, Gas and Chemicals Inc. have entered into a lump sum turnkey contract for the engineering, procurement and construction of the third and fourth liquefaction trains to be constructed adjacent to the Sabine Pass LNG terminal in Cameron Parish, LA. The contract price is about $3.8 billion. Total expected costs for the third and fourth trains before financing are estimated to be between $4.5 billion and $5 billion.Sabine Liquefaction intends to give Bechtel a notice to proceed upon achieving financing and a final investment decision. Construction for the third and fourth trains is expected to begin in the first half of 2013. Sabine Liquefaction commenced full construction for the first two liquefaction trains in August. Sabine Liquefaction recently announced that it is developing a fifth and sixth liquefaction train at the project and has entered into a sale and purchase agreement with Total Gas & Power North America Inc. (see Daily GPI, Dec. 18).

If expansions of U.S. industrial capacity that have been announced all get built as planned, natural gas consumption could grow by as much as 6 Bcf/d by 2020, Barclays said in a note last week.

If expansions of U.S. industrial capacity that have been announced all get built as planned, natural gas consumption could grow by as much as 6 Bcf/d by 2020, Barclays said in a note Tuesday.

Environmentalists have filed a lawsuit in Washington, DC, challenging the Interior Department’s final 2012-2017 plan for Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) oil and natural gas leasing, which focuses primarily on the the Gulf of Mexico and potentially offshore areas in Alaska.

Colorado regulators have approved a settlement for Rapid City, SD-based Black Hills Corp.’s natural gas utility operations in the state, allowing a small rate increase amounting to less than 1% annually. Black Hills/Colorado Gas Utility Co. put the recommended rate hike into effect Monday, the first base rate increase for the utility since April 2009. Although the increase amounts to only $174,000 more in revenue annually, or an 0.83% increase, Black Hills officials said the approved rates allow it to recover the nearly $30 million the utility has invested in its infrastructure since 2008, along with a 9.6% return on equity. The increase was hammered out in a settlement earlier this year among the utility, Colorado Public Utilities Commission staff and the state Consumer Counsel Office.

The Delaware Riverkeeper Network said more than 50 organizations have signed a petition asking the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) to take regulatory authority over natural gas pipelines in the watershed.