Idle

The five-member California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) on Thursday denied a long-standing proposal to develop an idle dry natural gas field into an underground storage project beneath a residential community in Sacramento. CPUC members voted 3-2 against the 7.5 Bcf capacity independent project.

North Dakota continued setting new oil and natural gas production records in April, but drilling equipment shortages grew, increasing the estimated number of idle wells by 76 in April.

“The idle well [count] increased again to 762 wells, approximately 300 above the normal 450, indicating that drilling continues to outpace fracturing services and a need to add approximately 10 crews,” Helms said in his monthly “Director’s Cut” report.

More than two-thirds of the offshore oil and natural gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and more than half of the onshore leases on federal lands remain idle, according to a report requested by President Obama and released Tuesday by the Interior Department.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar Wednesday visited three Gulf of Mexico drilling rigs — two active and one idle — to receive updates on industry compliance with new inspection requirements and safety specifications for blowout preventers (BOPs) and well construction.

Among its many pipeline expansion certificates Wednesday, FERC granted Missouri Interstate Gas LLC permission to take control of an existing but idle crude oil pipeline in Missouri and turn it into a natural gas pipeline.

Freeing up 27 Bcf of supplies in an idle Southern California Gas Co. underground storage facility this summer could help further reduce natural gas prices in California this summer, the state’s chief energy regulatory agency said Wednesday. It is one of several items on the California Public Utilities Commission agenda for today that are aimed at easing the summer electricity supply and price crisis.

The controversy surrounding an idle Southern California Gas Co.underground storage field in the Los Angeles Basin continues tosimmer as the ongoing state investigation into SoCal’s potentialmisuse of the power of eminent domain goes forward with hearingsscheduled for October. All the facts may never surface publicly,and even if they do, it will take months of complicated regulatoryproceedings.

Southern California Gas’ attempt to sell its smallest LosAngeles Basin underground natural gas storage facility has beenabruptly halted by state regulators while an investigation isconducted into how the nation’s largest gas utility has dealt withregulators and surrounding landowners in the Eastern LA suburb ofMontebello, CA, bordering the storage facility. It is now in thehands of the California Public Utilities Commission, which couldassess some large fines if SoCalGas is found to have violated staterules.