Identify

Staff of the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission (AOGC) has recommended the permanent shut-in of saltwater disposal wells in an area north of Conway, AR, in the Fayetteville Shale where a recent earthquake swarm is thought to have resulted from waste injection activities.

Texas natural gas producers would be required to add a “tracer” liquid to help identify the fluids they use in hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations under a bill filed in the state legislature last Friday.

Researchers at Pennsylvania State University have been awarded a $412,000, three-year grant by the Heinz Endowments to identify and mitigate the effects of Marcellus Shale natural gas exploration and development on the state’s forest ecosystem. The interdisciplinary research team, led by two faculty members in the College of Agricultural Sciences, will evaluate landscape change as a result of gas exploration disturbances, assess local and landscape-scale changes to the forest ecosystem and develop an electronic field guide for onsite remediation and wildlife habitat enhancement at Marcellus drilling sites. The team also plans to pilot a long-term citizen-science based monitoring program to track changes to the physical landscape and biotic communities.

While Gulf oil and natural gas activity is lagging, the economic outlook for developers of new technology to quickly identify high-pressure leaks in blowout preventers (BOP) and other outage events looks brighter, executives say.

In keeping with an earlier released 10-year integrated resource plan (IRP), Avista Utilities Monday issued a request for information (RFI) to identify new potential energy-saving programs. The utility hopes the ideas generated by the RFI will lead to a formal request for proposals (RFP) process to line up new conservation efforts. Responses to the RFI are due April 24.

An oil and gas mega-giant so large that it only needs initials to identify it — BP — also has become a leader in energy merchant services, after moving into the top spot of natural gas marketers in NGI’s first quarter survey. As expected, producers like BP, ConocoPhillips and Shell’s trading arm, Coral Energy, are beginning to command the energy merchant stage, as the former leaders, led by Mirant, AEP, Duke Energy and Dynegy, all slowly take their bow and exit stage left.

An oil and gas mega-giant so large that it only needs initials to identify it — BP — also has become a leader in energy merchant services, after moving into the top spot of natural gas marketers in NGI’s first quarter survey. As expected, producers like BP, ConocoPhillips and Shell’s trading arm, Coral Energy, are beginning to command the energy merchant stage, as the former leaders, led by Mirant, AEP, Duke Energy and Dynegy, all slowly take their bow and exit stage left.

The Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) can’t say for sure whether its program in which it takes oil and natural gas from producers in lieu of cash royalty payments has been a success or failure, said the General Accounting Office (GAO).

A producer group has asked FERC to identify the negotiated-rate transportation contracts that will be subject to refunds as a result of action the Commission took against Transwestern Pipeline last month. The Enron pipeline was ordered in mid-July to pay shipper refunds for excess negotiated-rate transportation charges levied during the California energy crisis, which at times reached 100 times the maximum regulated rate. The agency also stripped Transwestern of its authority to negotiate rates based on basis differentials for an entire year (See Daily GPI, July 18).