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Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and federal Bureau of Land Management Director Bob Abbey will help Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead co-chair a sage grouse task force, Mead announced Friday. The task force will review ways states can provide sage grouse management tools and habitat protections. As means of potentially avoiding the need to list sage grouse under the federal Endangered Species Act, the task force was created in December following a meeting in Wyoming among U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and officials from 10 states that have habitat for the greater sage grouse, a large, ground-dwelling bird that lives at elevations of 4,000 to 9,000 feet (see Daily GPI, Jan. 11). In 2009 Wyoming instituted a “Sage-Ground Core Area Protection” program. Mead has continued the push for state-led actions.

Unusually warm winter weather and the ongoing production boom from the nation’s shale plays will help keep natural gas spot prices down in 2012, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofA) said in separate reports Monday.

Marcellus Shale development in northeast Pennsylvania is spurring Delta Airlines Inc. to add one daily flight and upgrade another to help accommodate more travelers to the region.

As Pennsylvania lawmakers move to increase the bonding requirements for shale operators, a new Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) study questions whether bonding adequately ensures reclamation.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) has tapped former National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairman Jim Hall to serve as an outside adviser to help the utility oversee the extensive safety improvement initiatives under way within its natural gas operations. Hall and his firm, Hall & Associates, are to focus in particular on ensuring that PG&E’s plans are effectively addressing the safety recommendations that have emerged during the past year through various audits and other inquiries into the San Bruno, CA, pipeline accident in September 2010. The recommendations are included in the final reports issued by the California Public Utilities Commission Independent Review Panel and the NTSB (see NGI, Oct. 3).

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) has tapped former National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairman Jim Hall to serve as an outside adviser to help the utility oversee the extensive safety improvement initiatives under way within its natural gas operations.

Higher than previously anticipated earnings in its natural gas distribution and ONEOK Partners segments will help generate $355-400 million of net income in 2012, a significant increase compared with ONEOK Inc.’s 2011 guidance of $325-345 million, the Tulsa-based company said.

Citing growing oil production from shale plays, Enterprise Products Partners LP and Enbridge Inc. said Thursday they plan to construct a pipeline to transport crude oil from the oversupplied hub at Cushing, OK, to the Texas Gulf Coast refining complex. Enterprise recently scrapped plans to pursue a similar project with a different partner.

Canada’s natural resources minister said natural gas would help make the country a “global energy superpower,” emphasizing that the resource can be produced and delivered in a safe and environmentally responsible way.