International

TransCanada Corp. has pulled back from opening a new front in regulatory duels with customers of its international family of pipelines. Nova Gas Transmission, the empire’s Alberta arm, has withdrawn an application to the National Energy Board (NEB) for approval of a contested scheme called NEXT, short for natural gas liquids (NGL) extraction (see Daily GPI, March 19).

International bankers have “temporarily prevailed” on the lawsuit challenging the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) rule limiting speculative trading in commodity derivatives, but the “struggle isn’t over,” CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton vowed last Tuesday as trading exchanges backed off their previous plans of altering their own position limit rules.

Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. on Thursday said international energy companies OIL India Ltd. and Indian Oil Corp. Ltd. (IOC) will make their first foray into U.S. shale by taking a 30% stake in the Houston operator’s holdings in the Niobrara Formation of Colorado.

FERC Friday approved El Paso Natural Gas Co.’s request for a presidential permit to build border-crossing facilities at the international boundary between the United States and Mexico to export natural gas to northern Mexico for its expanding power generation market.

Shale natural gas produced in the Northeast will supply more than 80% of the physical gas going to New York City by 2025, according to ICF International.

The 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, which has so far been relatively mild, may be about to intensify, according to Weather Services International (WSI), which last week increased its forecast to 14 named storms, including seven hurricanes, three of them major (Category 3 or higher). Tropical Storm Isaac, the ninth named storm of the season, on Friday seemed poised to prove WSI’s point.

The 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, which has so far been relatively mild, may be about to intensify, according to Weather Services International (WSI), which increased its forecast to 14 named storms, including seven hurricanes, three of them major (Category 3 or higher).

Responding in part to the public outcry over hydraulic fracturing (fracking), ASTM International has created a subcommittee to develop consensus standards that would provide best practices for the fracking of oil and natural gas wells in shale formations.

More named storms than previously forecast are likely to form in the Atlantic Basin this year, according to Weather Services International (WSI), despite nearly a month passing since Tropical Storm Debby’s brief trek through the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) (see Daily GPI, June 26).