Insight

Texas lawmakers on Wednesday gained some insight into where an increasing amount of money in the Lone Star State comes from: the Eagle Ford Shale oil and gas patch. The state is producing more oil than it has in the last 25 years, thanks in large part to the unconventional play in South Texas.

It’s too early in the game to know if the productivity power of the Utica/Point Pleasant Shale in Ohio and western Pennsylvania will match other U.S. unconventional plays, but initial natural gas well data is encouraging, and if the oil-prone window is successfully derisked, the play could prove to be a triple-play hydrocarbon monster, according to IHS Inc. researchers.

Oneok Partners LP is holding an open season through Nov. 20 for its Bakken Crude Express Pipeline, a proposed 1,300-mile pipeline with capacity to transport 200,000 b/d of light-sweet crude oil from multiple points in the Williston Basin’s Bakken Shale in North Dakota and Montana to the crude oil market hub in Cushing, OK (see Shale Daily, April 10). Construction is expected to begin in early 2014 and be completed by mid-2015. For information, visit the project website or contact Lisa Nishimuta at (918) 588-7730, lisa.nishimuta@oneok.com; or Tim King at (918) 732-1339, tim.king@oneok.com.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter welcomed the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC) and the Shale Gas Insight 2012 Conference last week, but he warned the industry to do more to earn the public’s trust that hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is safe.

Growing gas supply in the Marcellus Shale and projected growth in gas-fired power generation among southern states could mean a renaissance for the traditional Gulf of Mexico-to-Northeast pipeline business. Spectra Energy Corp. would seem to think so, as its latest project, called Renaissance Gas Transmission, would carry Marcellus gas south to Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee.

Energy industry leaders, while directly challenging the opposition, called on the more than 1,600 people attending the Shale Gas Insight 2011 conference in Philadelphia Wednesday to help promote a national energy policy that significantly expands the role of natural gas.

Energy industry leaders, while directly challenging the opposition, called on the more than 1,600 people attending the Shale Gas Insight 2011 conference in Philadelphia Wednesday to help promote a national energy policy that significantly expands the role of natural gas.

A report last month by IHS CERA/IHS Global Insight blaming Department of Energy (DOE) regulators for delays in processing drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico is incomplete, lacks an explanation of its methodology, and contains “a number of inaccurate and misleading claims,” according to DOE’s Michael Bromwich.

A report last month by IHS CERA/IHS Global Insight blaming Department of Energy (DOE) regulators for delays in processing drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico is incomplete, lacks an explanation of its methodology, and contains “a number of inaccurate and misleading claims,” according to DOE’s Michael Bromwich.